Religions explained

We know that we humans are influenced by our environment. That we are subject to the things we see, hear, and experience. If this weren’t the case then companies wouldn’t be spending billions of dollars on advertising and politicians would immediately stop campaigning. But the continue because they are able to affect our thinking, spending, and our actions.

This is why book bans are becoming more popular. Because books have the power to influence readers in ways that the conservatives don’t like. They encourage independent thinking. Parochial Christian thinking needs to be protected against outside influence or it will fail. It is a delicate thought system that needs constant guarding and reinforcement to survive. It depends on dependent thinkers. But the books they want to ban risk showing readers (Christian children) a world contrary to what their conservative Christian parents taught (indoctrinated) them.

The difference between education and indoctrination is in it’s breath (or focus), and it’s goal. Education presents a wide range of information, much of it contradictory, and expects the student to incorporate it with their previous experiences and come to their own conclusions. Indoctrination presents a narrowly focused set of information designed to lead the student to a target conclusion. Education teaches the student how to think. Indoctrination teaches what to think. Education is about the process. Indoctrination is about the goal.

Both education and indoctrination are ongoing throughout one’s life. Indoctrination needs guard rails on the limits of knowledge for it to survive. This is the purpose of book bans, which are but one small part of the larger thought control system, is to restrict knowledge inconsistent with indoctrination goals and to keep people thinking dependently. Whether it be Christian values, Muslim values, or governmental goals (CCP, North Korea, Russia), indoctrination depends on controlling the flow of information to produce and maintain dependent thinkers.

This is why book bans are necessary: to preserve and advance indoctrination goals. Otherwise people might stray and learn something “harmful” (but true).

It has been estimated that there have been over 4000 religions throughout history. And each one has one or more gods. There is no definitive definition of what a god is. But most if not all of these gods have these three things in common:

1. They can’t be falsified
2. They have powers to benefit humans
3. They can be influenced by human actions

They can’t be falsified

Their existence and powers can’t be falsified. In other words, they can’t be proven false. They can’t be proven true either but they also can’t be proven false. The latter is the most important feature for a God.

“… not be approachable by direct application of the scientific method. The founding idea [God] must be so untouchable, subjective or abstract in its formulation that man, in his current technological state is ill equipped to prove or disprove the contention at hand. Non-falsifiable, of course is not synonymous with un-falsifiable.” https://theethicalskeptic.com/2012/04/28/what-constitutes-a-religion/

The non-falsifiable nature of gods is why there are fewer gods now than in the past. Science has explained many of them away so their numbers have dwindled significantly.

They have powers to benefit humans

If the gods were powerless to benefit us then there would be no reason to pay them any attention. Or in the case of multiple gods with different powers, people would look to the one with the power they needed and ignore the others.

They can be influenced by human actions

This is the functions of religions, to influence the gods in our favor. Religions teach their followers what their god expects and how to please that god to get their reward and to avoid their disfavor. Religions are a god’s support group.

Extra terrestrial v terrestrial

Gods have typically been other worldly, or not of this world. But there is precedence for terrestrial gods. The Egyptian pharaohs were living gods. And Julius Caesar thought of himself or at least wanted himself to be thought of as a god.

And in current times there are a number of organizations setting themselves out to be god like. Governments like the CCP, North Korea, and the Russia. They are god like because it’s impossible to (successfully) challenge them and prove them wrong. Those who try are “disappeared” or silenced in other manners.

The outside world sees their faults but those people trapped in their sphere of influence are denied that opportunity by design.

On first blush you would think that studying religions is a waste of time because they are all based on false Gods. But if you go one layer deeper and consider that these false Gods were created by their underlying societies, then you see them in a different light. Studying religions is actually a study in history, sociology, cultural anthropology, and human nature.

Religions are concerned about the spiritual nature of man. There are few if any secular resources discussing the spiritual nature of man. But there are numerous religious resources holding those discussions.

These discussions are important because secular thinkers too have a spiritual side. So if we go to some of these religious websites and review their discussions with a critical eye we can gain a lot of valuable information.

Religions can offer some deep insights about mankind’s spiritual nature because they have been studying it for hundreds/thousands of years.

I think the answer to this question depends on how you define “god”. There are hundreds of gods that have existed throughout time. Maybe more. But most of them are extinct now. Or at least lost to history.

The main surviving gods are typically exclusive and monotheistic as represented by the big 3 religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Each of those followers would say that their god exists, but that the others are false gods. This is the prevailing definition of god today. As evidenced by the great divide in the world along religious lines.

But now there is a growing trend for people to blend these religions together and say they all represent the same god, just that people see him (her) differently. That it’s the same god, just worshiped differently.

Others will say that god is who or what ever created the universe. So by definition this god exists because we are here, living and breathing.

So back to the original question: Does god exist? Statistically I would have to say no. Most of the gods throughout history are now extinct. And in time many of the current version of gods will either blend together into one, or fall to history. And the surviving god will be who or what ever created the universe. Which is a rather useless and circular definition.

God is simply a representation of what we don’t currently understand. In this respect, “god” will always exist to the degree that we don’t understand life and the universe.

“Now, primitive man is neither a metaphysician nor an idealist. He does not concern himself with the origin and destiny of the universe, nor even with its nature, except so far as his necessities compel him to form some conclusions as to the nature of the forces around him. His gods are in no sense a creation of an “idealising faculty,” they are the most concrete matter-of-fact expressions. It is not even a question of morality. He does not say, “Let us make gods in the interest of morality and the higher life”; it is the sheer pressure of facts upon an uninformed mind that leads him to believe in those extra-natural beings, whose anger he is bound to placate.” -Chapman Cohen

Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind dying, came to a tranmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual; the Greek mysteries passed down into the impressive mystery of the Mass. Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity, the Last Judgement, and a personal immortality of reward and punishment; from Egypt the adoration of the Mother and Child, and the mystic theosophy that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed; there, too, Christian moanasticism would find its exemplars and its source. From Phrygia came the worship of the Great Mother; from Syria the resurrection drama of Adonis; from Thrace, perhaps the cult of Dionysus, the dying and saving god. From Persia came millennarianism, the “ages of the world,” the “final conflagration,” the dualism of Satan and God, of Darkness and Light; already in the Forth Gospel Christ is the “Light shining in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.” The Mithraic ritual so closely resemled the eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass that Christian fathers charged the Devil with inventing these similarities to mislead frail minds. Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.” -Will and Ariel Durant, The Story of Civilization

In the Middle East, the Bronze Age people of Canaan–the ancient region between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean that roughly corresponds to Israel–also failed to adapt to the drying out of their lands around 2200 BC(E). In their case, says Arlene Rosen of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, it was their beliefs that were their undoing. ‘In Canaan, people believed that environmental disasters were caused by a deity unhappy with the people,” she says. Like the Mayans, the Canaanites could have coped with the new conditions by introducing new irrigation systems for their crops.

Instead, they attributed the shift in climate to the wrath of the gods, built more temples and prayed for better times. Within a short time, the cities and towns were abandoned and the people became nomadic hearders. -Rigid’ cultures caught out by climate change, article in the 5 March 1994 edition of New Scientist

Religions are a fact of life. They are the default world view for most people in all societies throughout human history. Regardless of their credibility, religions impact us in so many ways. Much of their influence is back ground noise that we don’t even notice. Other times their influence is major and in our face. Like they way they reshaped society after the 9/11 world trade center disaster or in the laws that are passed to defend and promote their values.

Therefore it is important to understand religions, their origins, and their place in human history. Otherwise their influence might pass unseen and unnoticed into our life and be a source of doubt and confusion to the uncertain mind.

We can learn much from religions because they are a product of the human mind and are built upon thousands of generations of human history. The study of religions is an exercise in philosophy, sociology, and cultural anthropology. It is a look at our shared past.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them. -Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

Contrary to what most atheists like to say, religions are very logical. In fact, religions themselves are a creation of mankind’s machine like logical mind and his efforts to understand the world and his place in it.

• Religions and their associated gods are man made. Given early man’s limited knowledge, religious beliefs are understandable. With more knowledge we now see that religions were a mistake, an error made by primitive man based on the limited information available at the time.
• Religions adopted the morality present in their founding culture and claimed it as their own.
• Over time religions have become so curve fit to the human condition and have developed effective self-propagation features that they continue to thrive in spite of the better information now available to modern man.
• Religions self-propagate primarily through early parental and social indoctrination into a young child’s undeveloped and trusting mind. Once the religious assumptions are accepted as fact in the young mind, then the validity, usefulness, and truthfulness of all subsequent information will be assessed based upon these previously learned facts (religious assumptions).
• Early childhood indoctrination is critical for religious belief. But it is not a guarantee of religious belief. This is why it is common for believers to lose their faith and become atheists but it is uncommon for atheists to become believers.
• Religion’s greatest strength is also it’s greatest weakness. If one is born into a religion and is sufficiently indoctrinated into it, that religion has the believer’s mind for a lifetime. But without early childhood indoctrination – religion has little or no chance of establishing it’s self in an informed mind.
• Another self-propagating feature of religions is that believers are taught to avoid conflicting information by self censure and to eliminate it by force if necessary. The purpose of censorship and blasphemy laws is to eliminate (punish/discourage/convert, banish, or kill) the of the source of the conflicting information.
• Evidence is subordinate to pre-existing beliefs. This is why it is so difficult to change someone’s mind. Religious believers and atheists all see the same evidence about god. The difference is how they interpret the evidence. Religious assumptions learned about god in early childhood are more important to faith than any actual evidence because those assumptions dictate how all subsequent evidence will be evaluated.
• Religions are easy to teach because they rely on indoctrination and the exclusion of information. As such they are cheap and easy to pass down to the next generation. Secular thinking is complicated, contradictory, and depends on extensive knowledge. It takes time, money, and effort to educate people. And this option is currently out of reach for most of the worlds population.
• Religions are theories that attempt to explain life and the universe. If their fundamental assumptions are true then their logical conclusions are also true. But if religious conclusions are false the error is not with their logic but rather with their fundamental assumptions.
• One of the reasons that religions still thrive is because they address man’s deepest hopes and fears about life. Secular world views can not easily compete with religious world views until they successfully address mankind’s spiritual needs.
• Religious freedom is necessary because it is unreasonable to punish people for things that are beyond there control. People are born into their religion and don’t have a choice about believing or not believing. It is inconsistent with human rights to punish someone for their inherited beliefs.
• Religions don’t consider each other a threat because early childhood indoctrination into each particular religion is a prerequisite for it’s success. However atheism is a constant existential threat to all religions because secular education is a lifetime process that can potentially undermine religious indoctrination at any point in time.
• It is possible that god (as represented by one of the current or previous religions) exists. But it’s not probable.