What would have to change to make you follow a religion.

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I'm not entirely sure if there's "some higher power" or not and in what form. There's many ideas that could be true because they can't be disproved. From being a casual alien experiment to the ideas of mainstream religions to "the matrix" and everything in between and beyond. But I'm 100% sure that religions are wrong and have nothing to do with "trying to find answers to the unknown". Without even looking at -what- they say, -how- the mean to say it is self defeating. I'll list, in no particular order, some of the things that I think would have to change about the "how", before I even consider about "what" it's trying to say.

I understand people have been thinking about this for as long as religions have been trying to fool them, so of course many religions have tried to make themselves more believable by trying to work around these contradictions (by for example adding afterlife ideas). But it takes only one to make the entire house of cards fall apart.


- Only one religion instead of thousands.

If there really was some higher being who controls everything but gives us free choice to find "the right way" then there would only have been one religion.

- Religion wouldn't acknowledge other religions (or unbelievers).

Religions proof that they were thought up by people by, within their design, describing the existence of other religions (and the concept of non believers). If we all did follow the same and "one true" religion, as religions make people believe "it's supposed to be" then it wouldn't make sense for the religion itself to mention an alternative. Unless the alternative is actually part of "the greater plan", but then it wouldn't make sense to punish/look negatively upon those people from a religious point of view as they are clearly following the plan.

- Religious people would statistically have better lives.

If following a religion was the way "the superior one" wanted us to live because "it's the right/better way" then they -would- have better lives. It would rain less, (or more, depending on where on the planet you live I suppose), less earthquakes, less tornado's etc etc at the places where people "believe more". And individually they would get sick less, be smarter, luckier, etc etc. Unless "the mighty one" is willing to punish "those who do it the right way" for the "wrong things" done by others. But that would mean "he" is unfair because as stated above, "he" gives us the alternative from within the stories/lessons of the religion itself.

- Religions wouldn't have the need for books/people to preach to begin with.

If it really was internally part of us, then it wouldn't have to be described/told about by other people to start with. Unless "it's the plan/test" for us "the normal people" by "the one who knows more" to make us keep it alive and carry it on ourselves, but then as described above, "not knowing the perfect way" wouldn't be a negative thing. It would be unreasonable to punish someone for not following (or searching for) what they've never heard about.

- Religions wouldn't have any form of hierarchy.

The idea of hierarchy within religion proves that the people who made it up realized they needed some people to be "more right" than others, but at the same time, this would mean there'd be no point for "the followers" in listening to anyone but the one at the absolute top. Or it proves that some level of differences will always exist between people, but then it wouldn't make sense for ANY of them to say any of the others are wrong.


I'm looking forward to your ideas.

Evidence would be nice.
You mentioned you were 100% certain all religion were wrong. I'm an atheist, but I wouldn't go that far.

Why is it necessary to "follow" any religion?

is 'science' a religion?

since most people espousing scientific ideas do so from faith that what they are told in schools or hear - is true

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 22 Apr 2014, 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't say that all of religion is wrong, but all religionS are. (or for statistical sake let me say 99,99% because I'm sure there's one or two out there in history that when interpreted a certain way can't be broken down by contradictions.)


And yes Evidence is of course number 1.


And khaoz, I'm saying you shouldn't. You can draw from, but you should never "blindly" follow and believe "it's "all" true".

No, people who espouse scientific ideas do so because they have seen the experiments which prove the science is real, or they have seen the documentation that the experiments hold up to peer review. People who attack science because they do not believe that the theory of evolution does not prove that man evolved from apes do not understand what evolutionary theory says.

Take the "atomic model" for example, have you ever seen electrons ? Same is true for the theory of evolution, have you held fossil bones and do you understand DNA structures ?

People just put their faith in smart people with credentials. Same as religion in this regard.

I have not seen electrons because I do not have a physics degree. However I do have a biology degree. Understanding DNA structure was one of the fundamentals. Getting to hold fossil bones was one of the perks (in the smaller advanced classes that you take at the end of the degree, behind-the-scenes access becomes possible and you can touch the things that are usually in cases but must wear gloves).

In a certain sense, you are putting your faith in smart people with credentials since no person has enough memory to be an expert in all scientific disciplines. But it really isn't the same as religion because of Autinger's main point in the OP. Science depends on proof and on repeatability of experiments. It is a body of knowledge but it is knowledge that was discovered rather than created. This is why you don't have many different versions of science the way you have many different versions of religion. The laws of nature are the same everywhere.

At least the explanation of electrons, and the videos which you can watch of scientists explain it with scientific equipment is rational. A "God" is not rational, by any means. You seem to think that scientists will fabricate things for some reason, yet you refuse to believe the possibility that the Bible is a fabrication. The many revisions, retranslations and interpretations that try to excuse the Bibles contradictions and hypocrisy are simply accepted by you. I don't care what you believe, but don't try to force your belief on me. There are scientific experiments that kids can do at home to prove that science is real. There is no experiment that you can do anywhere to prove that God is real.

If you assert that the distinction is 'repeatability', then don't you run right into the religious argument that often see of "if the theory of evolution is repeatable, then why don't you repeat it for everyone? How come I don't see monkeys turning into humans? Where is the proof and repeatability ?



I never implied scientists would fabricate stuff, but yeah they do all the time. "Bad science" is a real thing.

The rest of you statements are a misguided attack on my motivation.

The only thing that would make me follow a religion is if no one else follows it.

Bad science is not fabrication. Bad science is mistakes Creationism or "ID" is what you would call bad science because it is a science created with the intent of discrediting other science. That is not science. Creationism is not a science created to discover. It is a made up "science" with an agenda. It is a science trying to disprove other science. That is not science. A scientist cannot have a bias, other than to find fact. Creationism is a made up science created with the intent of circumventing the First Amendment by introducing new terminology for what is prohibited by law in order to introduce a belief system into public education. It is dishonest. It goes against the Commandment regarding lying., which means the people responsible for trying to bring Creationism into the education system have no integrity in their own belief system.

When I said repeatability, I actually meant that experiments can be repeated and give the same results. But taking it the way you have, the human domestication of plants and animals would count as "repeating it for everyone". Evolutionary changes happen because of selection pressures. Humans over the millennia have intentionally created selection pressures to change many plants and animals to be more to our liking.



Why would they? There is no selection pressure- including none applied by us- for them to do so.


The proof is in fossil evidence. Many, many species who were suited for natural conditions of the past have left fossils we have found. Natural conditions change and this change is a major selection pressure. Another type of evidence left behind of times gone past is in DNA of all living creatures. We have genetic instructions to "ignore" these relics and not express those genes but sometimes the suppression doesn't quite happen and the features of the past pop up now and then. That's why every now and then, a baby is born with a tail. Cancer is really a throwback to our very ancient single cell past. Cells have suppressor instructions to keep the cell subservient to the needs of the multicellular organism. But all manner of things can damage that suppressor and the cell acts like the last couple billion years never happened and they are independent unicellular organisms. he kludge modifications that keep being added to DNA is evidence.

Repeatability of evolution is happening right now in hospitals and animal feed lots around the world. We have unwittingly applied selection pressure to many species of bacteria in the form of antibiotics. Antibiotic resistant bacteria are organisms evolving so quickly (because they have such a short generation time) that we can watch it happening right before our eyes. This is so compelling that creationists have had to accept it. They manage to accept it without accepting any other aspects of evolution by dubbing it "micro evolution" and claiming it is not reflective of what happened with other organisms including us. But it is, If we lived for 100,000 years instead of just 100, we would be able to witness evolution of organisms with longer generation times.

I really have no idea what's going on..

But let me try to get my point across:

I'm mostly sure that we're just biological machines created by a series of random events in a cocktail of *SCIENCE*.

However, I think I can consider myself "spiritual" in the sense that I like to philosophize about what kind of exciting possible answers there could be for certain questions we don't have answers for, yet. And I don't mean *SCIENCE* questions because I "trust" science for all the good reasons. (peer review, experiments, etc). (See, I put quotes around "trust" because I consider myself *SCIENCY* enough to know that sadly sometimes even those methods fail us for whatever *CRIME*/sheer incompetence reason.) I believe that's what a religion should be for, and as far as I've learned in my life, that's what they all say they are for.

The reason for this thread was to basically ask you guys think is wrong with current religions and what you'd like to see changed in the way how they work, without looking at what context they put it in, because at this moment I can't reason why anyone would really want to follow any kind of "religion package" because there's self dismantling flaws in everyone of them (99,999% for trollcatman's sake).

Maybe some of my examples weren't perfect, because of course people will always write/type down and share their ideas and of course people will always end up preferring certain sets of ideas over others and by sheer numbers certain groups of people will end up thinking a certain similar way while another group will end up thinking similar a different way. And of course if people with similar ideas start meeting up then some of them will end up being "more in charge" than those who choose to remain home. But that's what "a religion" -should- accept and work with, or it's proving its own invalidity as well.

Having to follow it in the first place....

If I were religious, I think I would go for Unitarian Universalism because it very deliberately tried to "fix" flaws found in other religions, particularly the flaw of fights between religions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism



It seems to have been created by people who found existent religions to be too divisive and stifling. It seems to have been created by people who thought along the lines you did in your OP and then went out and made their own hodge podge religion to address those flaws.

If I were religious I would be all over that. But I'm not religious.