Religion is Man- Made

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Post Reply
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

“ A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there - and finding it! “ - unknown



“Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers” Rabia Al-Basri



“Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did “


“ I don't see any god up here” Yuri Gagarin - first man in space, while in space.

“The invisible and the non- existent look very much alike”


“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires” Susan B. Anthony

Eskimo:"If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
User avatar
Lacewing
Posts: 6604
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:25 am

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Lacewing »

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“All thinking men are atheists.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
― Isaac Asimov

“belief is the death of intelligence.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens
uwot
Posts: 6093
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 7:21 am

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by uwot »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:27 am“ A theologian is like a blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there - and finding it! “ - unknown
I:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYXenjp ... xo81Ok9Urk
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22140
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:27 am Religion is man-made.
Yes, a "religion" is man-made. That's definitional.

And I can't fault you if you say yours is. You're probably telling the truth.

But that's what's not "man-made": the truth.

So the real question is "Is anything the truth?" -- even if the truth turns out to reflect something others may choose to call "religious."
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:30 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:27 am Religion is man-made.
Yes, a "religion" is man-made. That's definitional.

And I can't fault you if you say yours is. You're probably telling the truth.

But that's what's not "man-made": the truth.

So the real question is "Is anything the truth?" -- even if the truth turns out to reflect something others may choose to call "religious."
Religion is an idea. An idea is built upon knowledge which is born of language. Humans are the only species known to have evolved a conceptual language.
Only your own story is true for you, but not necessarily true for another, for obvious reasons.

There is no truth outside of your own knowledge. Knowledge is all that can be known. There is nothing that can be known beyond or outside the known, obviously by logic.

The religious person knows their own truth according to their belief. This is the only truth there is because the concept itself is founded in language which is a human attribute.

You can only know your own truth, and not speak on behalf of another’s truth. It’s meaningless to say there is a truth that lies beyond human understanding because you would have to know that is true, and that’s the rub, insofar as knowledge. There is no truth or knowledge of anything outside of knowledge itself which is a human attribute.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22140
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:05 pm ...knowledge which is born of language...
No, knowledge is not initially a product of language, but of experience.

You know this, because babies have experiences before they have language...long before, in fact. Toddlers who cannot speak can remember things that happened to them, even years later. They didn't need to be able to find the language to speak of them, in order to have the experience.

Language is the way we address our experiences, not the cause of them initially. Though I agree that language CAN afterward be used to impart structure to experience, or even to warp and pervert the meaning of an experience after it's been had; but it's not the first step, but the response.
Only your own story is true for you, but not necessarily true for another, for obvious reasons.
Nothing at all is "obvious" about that claim. The primariy use of the word "true" is to designate that which is common in the experience of all people, not that which is false for most people, but appeals to only one. When somebody asks you, "Is that true?" They generally don't mean, "Do you believe it, though nobody else ever should?"

Your use of the word "true" there is either merely a synonym for "purely personal," or actually a synonym for "delusory."

Consider the implications of your view. Take the situation where a young person is victimized by an adult. The young person's "truth" is that he/she was molested, violated, robbed of innocence, and abused. The perpetrator's view (his "truth," if you like) is that it was "consensual," and a "relationship."

Now, I'm glad the courts do not take your view of "truth," and put the perp in prison; aren't you? :shock: But if "truth" is just what each individual makes of it, how can we incarcerate the perp? :?

Because his so-called "truth" isn't actually true. :shock:
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:05 pm ...knowledge which is born of language...
No, knowledge is not initially a product of language, but of experience.

You know this, because babies have experiences before they have language...long before, in fact. Toddlers who cannot speak can remember things that happened to them, even years later. They didn't need to be able to find the language to speak of them, in order to have the experience.
But what you are doing here is using your knowledge to claim experiences are present in a baby, as if it is the baby who is experiencing the experiences. But even to know that, to be able to communicate it, requires a language to confirm the knowledge of what you are talking about. This is possible through knowledge on demand, aka memory recall. Where the brain is responding to some data that has been previously imputed into the memory bank, via language. In other words, language by association is the creator of the human story, aka manifest as concepts known, aka knowledge.

A baby is functioning as a living thing without having any knowledge of it doing so. Instantaneously the baby is absorbing the language of it's parents, which it then learns to mimic and form a separate identity, albeit illusory. All language does is give the illusion of continuity to the identity via constant Knowledge on demand where there was previously none. This is nothing more than brain functioning. There is no thing with an identity inside the brain, except as a known concept imputed in there by language.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pmLanguage is the way we address our experiences, not the cause of them initially.

Though I agree that language CAN afterward be used to impart structure to experience, or even to warp and pervert the meaning of an experience after it's been had; but it's not the first step, but the response.
Responses are known via knowledge on demand which is founded in past tense or memory, it's an artifically secondary reality upon what is has already happened to no identified thing.


.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:05 pm Only your own story is true for you, but not necessarily true for another, for obvious reasons.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pmNothing at all is "obvious" about that claim. The primariy use of the word "true" is to designate that which is common in the experience of all people, not that which is false for most people, but appeals to only one. When somebody asks you, "Is that true?" They generally don't mean, "Do you believe it, though nobody else ever should?"

Your use of the word "true" there is either merely a synonym for "purely personal," or actually a synonym for "delusory."
You have a wonderful but annoying knack of deviating away from the actual point of the topic.
This topic is pointing to the known concept ''Religion'' which is the man-made believed idea of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.

When we are discussing such ideas that involve a controlling power, we need to remember that we have absolutely no personal control over the way our lives will play out. The belief in the idea there is a controlling power separate from ourself, that is worthy of worship is to enter into an illusory realm of wishful thinking make-belief mentality.


Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pmConsider the implications of your view. Take the situation where a young person is victimized by an adult. The young person's "truth" is that he/she was molested, violated, robbed of innocence, and abused. The perpetrator's view (his "truth," if you like) is that it was "consensual," and a "relationship."
Off topic. Please keep on topic, and refrain from going off on a wild unnecessary tangent, which is tedious.

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pmNow, I'm glad the courts do not take your view of "truth," and put the perp in prison; aren't you? :shock: But if "truth" is just what each individual makes of it, how can we incarcerate the perp? :?

Because his so-called "truth" isn't actually true. :shock:
While this is irrelevant to the actual op, I'll ignore it for now, simply because I know you like to twist and bend religious discussion and make them about the real world, when they are nothing do with the real world.

This topic is supposed to be about the truth of the religious believer, not about molestations, violations, or being abused and robbed of innocence.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22140
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:45 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:05 pm ...knowledge which is born of language...
No, knowledge is not initially a product of language, but of experience.

You know this, because babies have experiences before they have language...long before, in fact. Toddlers who cannot speak can remember things that happened to them, even years later. They didn't need to be able to find the language to speak of them, in order to have the experience.
But what you are doing here is using your knowledge to claim experiences are present in a baby,
No, I'm using my own experience. I am able to recall incidents from very early years, even before I could talk. I'm sure you are too. And when a child acquires language, he/she is often able to refer to incidents that happened to them before they even became verbal.

If language were necessary for knowledge, then that would simply be impossible. There would be no way for them to process or intellectually store any information prior to their acquisition of linguistic competence. But clearly, it's not so.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22140
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:11 pm ...we need to remember that we have absolutely no personal control over the way our lives will play out....
Is that your life? It's not mine.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pmConsider the implications of your view. Take the situation where a young person is victimized by an adult. The young person's "truth" is that he/she was molested, violated, robbed of innocence, and abused. The perpetrator's view (his "truth," if you like) is that it was "consensual," and a "relationship."
Off topic.
No -- directly on point, actually. If your theory were true, you'd have to accept the perp's "truth" as coequal with your own.
I'll ignore it for now,
I can understand why. It blows your theory to smithereens.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:13 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:45 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:43 pm
No, knowledge is not initially a product of language, but of experience.

You know this, because babies have experiences before they have language...long before, in fact. Toddlers who cannot speak can remember things that happened to them, even years later. They didn't need to be able to find the language to speak of them, in order to have the experience.
But what you are doing here is using your knowledge to claim experiences are present in a baby,
No, I'm using my own experience. I am able to recall incidents from very early years, even before I could talk. I'm sure you are too. And when a child acquires language, he/she is often able to refer to incidents that happened to them before they even became verbal.

If language were necessary for knowledge, then that would simply be impossible. There would be no way for them to process or intellectually store any information prior to their acquisition of linguistic competence. But clearly, it's not so.
There is no one recalling incidents, or intellectually storing information. There is no one remembering the events of their early years before they could talk. Only in knowledge born of language could any information be claimed to have happened.

Memory is not something you have, you are the memory remembering every event. However, to be able to describe or comprehend the data which is just a seeming experience of there being a you that lived in the past, just happens to be the exact same you that lives now. There is no actual distance there or the passing of time. You haven't moved from somewhere in the past to the present by remembering, you cannot be a member of the memory, you are the memory. Any apparent movement from past to present is simply a brain function happening only now, the one and only place you will and can ever exist. The transistion from a toddler to a teenager to an adult is simply a conceptual thought appearing now within timelessness. Now never moves or changes, except in this artificial concept, aka knowledge through the ability to comprehend and know language unique to human brain function. Nothing special, just a biological function of nature, a way for the species to move forward in it's evolution albeit illusory, for consciousness never moves anywhere, it's everywhere at once, one without a second.

.
Last edited by Dontaskme on Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
Immanuel Can
Posts: 22140
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Immanuel Can »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:51 pm There is no one remembering the events of their early years before they could talk.
Yep. There's me. And I'm sure there are others as well.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:15 pm No -- directly on point, actually. If your theory were true, you'd have to accept the perp's "truth" as coequal with your own.
In the human story, yes you are right. So what?
I'll ignore it for now,
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:15 pmI can understand why. It blows your theory to smithereens.
A theory is a story, so what? how does the truth that is a story be blown to smithereens. What the heck are you talking about?

Truth claims are human stories, they are here to stay, sorry but they can not be blown away.

Stories are theories, but they are all appearances within that which has no theory and no story.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:56 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:51 pm There is no one remembering the events of their early years before they could talk.
Yep. There's me. And I'm sure there are others as well.
You do not know what or who you are except in this, your / our conception, the false identity that is a made-up through make-belief and story, as and through the use of language, prior to which, there simply is no knowledge of you. I don't think you are able to accept this truth.
User avatar
Dontaskme
Posts: 16940
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:07 pm
Location: Nowhere

Re: Religion is Man- Made

Post by Dontaskme »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 7:13 pm I am able to recall incidents from very early years, even before I could talk. I'm sure you are too. And when a child acquires language, he/she is often able to refer to incidents that happened to them before they even became verbal.
The point is, this you that claims to have existed in the past is only possible because there is the belief here and now that you exist.

And you can only know you exist in this conception, which is born of language. I know you find this simple realisation difficult to grasp, but please be aware, you are not as smart as you think you are, they're will always be smarter people than you. The female for example is smarter than the male. No one has a theory Mr Can, they are unwritten dreams that's all, something you struggle to understand.
Post Reply