In these Dark Times, can Religion be considered an "honest-hearted" invention?

I've been distraught over the answer to this question for a few weeks now. At first, at least to me, the answer is very obvious: Religion is cause for war and suffering around the world, and it is a very backwards way of approaching an understanding of the universe and our place within it. But, with all of the happenings in the world of Information Technology, and my own bouts of philosophical 'deep-thinking', I've come to the conclusion that Religion was most likely not created to enslave masses of people, but instead to protect ourselves from, well, ourselves. Allow me to explain...

My thoughts on 'Sentient Capacity'

Sentient Capacity is not a term that I have ever seen used before, and I didn't really know what to label my revelations as, so I wanted to call them something cool. Mankind is a cognitive machine -- we are made to be intelligent so we may survive in the harshest of conditions. If it weren't for the collective intelligence of the human race, we would have never been able to survive in the vast reaches of outer space. It is my personal belief, based on what I have seen humankind accomplish, and my understanding of scientific data collected over these vast number of years and the numerous theories that have arisen out of them, that Humans are most likely the most advanced organisms in our entire solar system. It is also quite possible that we are one of the most intelligent and advanced species in the known universe.

I know that many WILL in fact, scoff at that sentence alone. To presume that humans are the 'tip o' the iceberg' is a wild claim that has not been accepted by many. But it IS a possibility that we are the only advanced intelligent lifeforms in this galaxy, or galactic sector, or even in the entire universe. That is something you, the reader, will have to cope with the implications of. This is widely known as the Fermi Paradox, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. Again, it is just a possibility, but a possibility nonetheless. One fact will be sure despite the outcome of the Paradox though -- Humans are intelligent, and we are among the most intelligent creatures that we have discovered on planet Earth. By looking at the human race and what we were 'endowed' with, it is easy to see how lucky the human race is:

Nature's roulette table ran for so long that it was able to spit out a creature more intelligent than a dolphin, and more physically capable than the chimpanzee, and you, reading this right now, are one product of that incredibly lucky dice roll. You could have very well ended up as a dog, but you aren't, you are a human being, and that in and of itself means alot. I am not a metaphysical type of person - I cringe when I hear the words "crystal" and "consciousness" in the same sentence. I think many people are disillusioned when it comes to these types of beliefs. But, there is one thing that certainly rings "TRUTH" anytime I hear someone ramble about how an amethyst cured their grandmother's cancer: Human beings are capable of nearly, if not, ANYTHING that they can imagine.

Take one second to imagine something, anything. It could be a world composed of complete macaroni and cheese. The greatest power that human beings have, is to be able to make that world a reality. Not a world of macaroni and cheese, per se, but anything that the human mind can imagine ( and I mean an actual visual imagination), the human hand can create. And that is what scares me, and has led me to believe that , possibly ,thousands of years ago, something or someone had this very same thought, and saw the exact same thing that I saw. The human race is capable of anything from picking up dirt, to destroying an entire galaxy, to ripping a hole in the fabric of spacetime. We haven't reached the last two yet, but that is not the scary thing -- the scary thing is that WE CAN. And by "WE", I don't mean the average homeless man on the street. He can certainly imagine it, but he won't have the tools available to him necessary for coming up with a way of wiping a galaxy clean of all of it's stars, or ripping a hole in spacetime. But our world leaders DO have that power.

What Religion has to do with this

So, like I mentioned before, it is very possible that someone who was alive thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years before any of us were born had this very same revelation: Humankind is fully equipped to destroy Humankind. Their solution? Religious Indoctrination. Now, I don't want that term to offend anyone, I mean it in the kindest way possible. What this means is that this person or group's solution to impede the progress of humanity was to create stories that explained away a multitude of questions about the world around us, so that we would not tread that path for answers. Whether this person foresaw the fact that people of their time may not have subscribed to those beliefs and instead subjugate people based on that belief system, commiting acts in the name of "Insert GOD here", while having full belief that no such entity exists, I have yet to come up with an answer to. But they DID want us to eventually step out of this paradigm, but only when the human race was mature enough to not end of reverting into a childlike state and using our enhanced capabilities to destroy one another, and in turn, ourselves.

Now, bear in mind, I am in no way propagating the ridiculous belief that only religious people have morals. I am merely stating that Religion has held us back TECHNOLOGICALLY, limiting us based on what we had at the time, and impeding progress into more efficient ( for better or for worse ) solutions to whatever "problem" we may have had. In the 400s BCE we used catapults and bows and arrows. In the 21st century we use Remote missile launchers controlled by drones while DARPA funds research into the only field I have ever loved -- Artificial Intelligence -- in order to someday make those drones fully unmanned, oh, and guns.

Then there is the obvious problem, that we, however-many-years in the future, have been so unfortunate to live and breath in this time: We are not mature, but we are gradually discarding away those Religions, and with them, that muddy framework that held us back from advancing our technologies in the first place. Obviously, it is clear that whoever thought up this ingenious scheme did not have such an incredible foresight as they probably once thought. So now we are left in our dying world. The human race was once held back by religious indoctrination from thousands of years ago, and we have nowhere near the technology that we do today. However, because of the glorious advances that science has brought to the world, the people who once subjugated us with religion have now moved on to subjugating us through politics and manipulate the way we behave and think, getting progressively more advanced each year. The NSA is completely rampant, and it can only grow exponentially from here, and not a single one of us can do anything to stop it. They control some of the most advanced data-mining technology the world has ever seen, and it is very possible that 10 years from now, everything your child has ever done will be logged somewhere, and can be pulled at any time during their life.

In conclusion, I am not writing this to add a light to Religion. I despise it, although I love going to church with friends. This is merely to make you think: It probably had good intentions.

reply to post by mr10k


Great post..I have often said that religion may have been created to keep people on the straight and narrow.

We can debate back and forth whether or not god is real along with UFO's, bigfoot, ghosts, demons and psychic ability but it does make sense that these were created as a moral compass.

Some will argue that religion has failed the people but it's the people who failed the people. Take religion out of it and some of the guiding principles would be a wonderful addition to any community.

I find it very interesting that so many cultures use a type of religion as a guide...be it Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Muslim or a form of Mayan Religion. It's funny how each culture has come up with their own religion.

I do believe in a higher being but yet I have zero proof that one exists...I would like to think a lot of other things exist but again I have zero proof to validate those. Such an interesting topic..thank you

Religion is like a gun...put it in the wrong hands and bad things happen. Religion in the right hands and wonderful things can happen.

I guess that relates to your opening paragraph that religion leads to or is a cause for war.

reply to post by mr10k


It was/is an invention built out of our pure survival instinct. What else do people who worship these Gods ever do it for? Whether it's to live after the life you have now or the more ancient religious who prayed to the God in the sky for rain.

reply to post by mr10k


Some interesting, thought-provoking ideas. I'm not saying you're right, but you may be beating about the citadel of truth, trying to find the entrance.

I have my own thoughts on this subject, which I will share if the thread prospers. At present I'm more interested in seeing what others have to say.

reply to post by mr10k

a creature more intelligent than a dolphin

How do you know that?

I happen to think dolphins, whales, and elephants are more intelligent (and sentient) than we are. They just don't mess with "technology", and have their own communication systems that WE don't fully understand. That doesn't make them "stupid."

Animals are NOT STUPID.

wildtimes
reply to post by mr10k

 

a creature more intelligent than a dolphin

How do you know that?

I happen to think dolphins, whales, and elephants are more intelligent (and sentient) than we are. They just don't mess with "technology", and have their own communication systems that WE don't fully understand. That doesn't make them "stupid."

Animals are NOT STUPID.

It is scientific fact that humans are more intelligent than dolphins.

Intelligence is a measure of learning capacity, and so far, no scientific research has surfaced that points to dolphins being more intelligent than humans. Dolphins are not that much more intelligent than many marine animals, and I don't recall ever typing that "animals are stupid"

reply to post by mr10k

I don't recall ever typing that "animals are stupid"

I didn't say you typed that. I typed that they ARE NOT stupid.

Anyway, interesting thread.

I think original religious/ideology movements or teachings were written and spread to inform people of better ways we can live our lives. Many think the primary reason was to control us in a desired direction but this is just government setting laws based on the peoples chosen religion / ideology.

Once a religion/ideology is set in society and government have adopted the main policies they then also use fear tactics about changing religious teachings because they know that the new teachings will generally oppose the government who is enforcing, corrupting & restricting the current adopted religion.

For example the teachings about Jesus and God were adopted as it was a much better way of living than what existed. Eventually governments adopted the main teachings and have adapted them ever since.

I would like to see a new religion/ ideology that doesn't ignore the teachings of past but also use modern understanding of things.

I have had those thoughts myself. I don't know what I think. As for science, I question the view on that that the OP seems to have. I have listened to Jordan Maxwell a bit and he said "religion could be science, and science is a religion".

I have been thinking about Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It seems to me like Judaism has the biggest amount of texts. We've all heard about Zionism, the Jewish conspiracy, the Jews supposedly being "God's chosen people" and maybe some have heard that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest average intelligence of all races. Jews are supposed to reveal God to all of humanity and spread the Torah to all of humanity. All of this has made me wonder if Jewish scholars created Christianity and Islam for the purpose of enlightening humanity. I have been thinking that wars are actually part of the enlightenment process. I don't want to go into that at length here. But basically I think that the greed of humanity inevitably leads us to build our own prison and as we're imprisoning ourselves we enlighten ourselves spiritually. I don't know but I think some answers to the OP might be found in Kabbala, for example in Zohar. I also read somewhere someone saying that for the spiritually interested who really questions he will not be satisfied with Christianity and Islam and will eventually have to study Kabbala, and that that is the only source for the deep truth. I also read somewhere someone saying that Kabbala is not mysticism, it's science. Here is a Kabbalist talking about something which I think might lead closer to the truth about these matters when investigated deeper:

www.youtube.com...

I'm currently studying Islam primarily, but I think I will study Kabbala in the future.

reply to post by mr10k

Your hypothesis implies that religion was consciously invented by people in order to provide a mechanism of behavioural control that would prevent the human race exterminating itself.

Would you be open to the idea that, rather than being invented, it evolved?

Please think it through before you answer.