Scientologists Shut Down ISP > Church members

reply to mags2

Re: Church members

I would have to agree. 95% of the world's population believes in a higher power in some form or fashion.
One cannot dismiss that as weak will. To do so is pretty shallow.
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We've got our eye on the firmaments, our hand on the armaments, our heads full of arguments, and words for our monuments.....

reply to SRFireside

said by SRFireside:

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Believing in something or having a spiritual faith does not equate to weakness. The weakness is in not making your own choices on what you believe. While I agree organized religion in of itself is not the answer I think people who figure out their spirituality end up being stronger than those who don't.

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reply to SRFireside

said by mags2:

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I believe in God, I do not -however- believe in having what I should think, do or say dictated to me by any particular religious affiliation. It is entirely up to me what choices I make and the consequences of those choices are between me and whatever divine entity I choose to believe in----whether it's J.C. or Buddha or Allah. What makes you weak willed or weak minded is when you blindly follow the mob doing and thinking precisely as they do without thinking about the consequences of those actions yourself.

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reply to mags2

said by mags2:

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Who said anything about spirituality? You can be spritual, and not religious, the two are not mutually exclusive.

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said by mags2:

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I consider myself a "spiritual" person but just because I do not attend regular church services, that does not make me an atheist, per se. I believe in God, I do not -however- believe in having what I should think, do or say dictated to me by any particular religious affiliation.

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Not Buyin It

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I think where most people misread you, myself included, is the equating of "being religious" with the attendance of or following a particular affiliation, which it isn't. If you believe in God, or any other deity, and have reverence for that god, then you are religious whether you go to "church" or not.

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Spirituality is the personal relationship between an individual and the creator, Religion is the relationship between an individual and like-minded peers. There is no ritual or doctrine proscribed in Spiritualism, it is merely a recognition of the fact that all creation is of the creator. Religion applies rules and value judgements to this fact; and by doing so, creates a rift between the individual and the creator. There is nothing inherently wrong with Religion, but a Spiritual person may find it confining and superfluous.

Organized religion's primary function is social control. It generates a sense of community and commonality, as well as provides an external morality for those with underdeveloped personal ethics. The inherent danger of this is the tendency to create an "us vs. them" mentality, which has occurred many times at the cost of millions of lives. This is not only sad, but blasphemous; all major religions are based on the same core morality, and genocide is not in the rule book. To oversimplify (and to keep this brief), Spiritualism focuses on commonality between you and your creator; Religion tends to emphasize differences.

I do not consider Scientology to be a religion. By shrouding their beliefs in secrecy and attempting to withhold information from those not properly "indoctrinated" they show themselves to be a cult.

Apologies for being long-winded, I just had flashbacks to comparative religion studies...
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If you can't laugh at yourself, I'll laugh at you.

reply to nc1165

Re: Church members

said by nc1165:

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Religion is to spirituality what politics is to government.

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reply to banditws6
Ok, I am now finding myself more understanding of Mags statements as well. There is a great difference between an organized Religion and Spiritual Truth.

People who are exposed to too much organized religion actually usually are driven *away* because they get to experience firsthand the failings of man... the Saying one thing, Doing another, the false pretenses, the hypocrisy(sp?) and so on.

reply to KrK
The first one is free. (There's more where that came from.)
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If my enemy cuts me, I will drown him in my own blood.

reply to BrianDamage06
The majority rules mentality leaves out one thing... Just because the majority rules, doesn't mean the majority is right... Case in point, the Earth used to be thought of as the center of the universe.... Minority was right on that one.... Your logic is SEVERELY flawed...
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The war on drugs... A neverending war on freedom.

reply to BrianDamage06

said by BrianDamage:

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I would have to agree. 95% of the world's population believes in a higher power in some form or fashion.
One cannot dismiss that as weak will. To do so is pretty shallow.

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reply to bmn
My logic is not flawed.
I never said the majority was "right", nor am I defending any religion. But, religion has brought out some good in people while bringing out the worst in others.
Also, I stick to the ideaology that religion has killed more people than any other single motivation, which "motivation" being the key word....sure, people kill people, but why? There are reasons hy people kill people, and religion has been the biggest reason throughout the history of humanity.
Governments are based on religious beliefs. Boundaries and borders are often defined by religious significance. Even today, governments are at war with each other because of religious differences. Israel and the PLO....Britain and Northern Ireland.....etc.
Christians and Muslims are killing each other in the Phillipines and Malaysia, Protestants killing Catholics in the British Isles, Christians and Muslims are killing each other in Asia, in America, in the Middle East....the list goes on and on.
I could make more examples, and the reference to "paganism" as posted further back in the thread serves to demonstrate the intolerance between religions that lead to underscore the motivation that leads to the deaths of people because of religious differences.
A "pagan" in Christian terms most often describes one who doesn't believe in Christ or the Holy Trinity, or was applied to the Native American peoples who were already here when the "Christians" landed....just because the "gods" of the indigenous peoples were different from theirs, they were branded "pagans", and were either converted to Christianity (the "correct" religion), or were killed....the Crusades were about perpetuating Christianity
against Islam....many died for the "religious" cause...
Infidels versus pagans....Christians versus Muslims, Muslims versus Christians, Christian versus Christian, Muslim versus Muslim, Hindu versus Muslim and vice versa, Buddhist versus Christian.....etc., etc., etc....
Where does it end? I don't see it ending anytime soon, but I have read the holiest of books from many religions as well as studied their varying histories, and I see NO distinct, solid, subsidy of violence to perpetuate the existence of one religion over another.
I have read the Bible, the Torah, the Quaran....not as thoroughly as I wanted but I have read them, as well as studied the varying histories of the governments founded on their principles, as well as the history of the religions themselves, both in college, and on my own out of sheer curiosity.
There are going to be those who want to inflame the topic based on their personal beliefs, but then that is what freedom is all about, isn't it?
I believe that if religion is going to continue to exist, then the peoples of the varying religion(s) need to realize that as a people, we must respect each other, and find a common ground. Believe it or not, for example, Christianity and Islam have a lot more in COMMON than they have different.
I, for one, believe that the events described by both religions respective holy books could have happened exactly the way they describe, given timelines and similarities of text.
Not that I specifically endorse either religion, or belong to any religion, because I don't, but, I will not readily dismiss religion on the whole, because there could be some significance to it (them).
They have defined the intolerance of the human race to this day more than any other factor.
Religion is the motivation for bloodshed, racism, intolerance, and hatred, as well as love, the world over.
We are missing, however, a link to tie them together, and that continues to drive the motivation that tears them apart even further.
That's what I think.
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We've got our eye on the firmaments, our hand on the armaments, our heads full of arguments, and words for our monuments.....

Religion for what it's *really* worth

Thanks, I think.....

reply to BrianDamage06

Re: Church members

said by BrianDamage:

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I stick to the ideaology that religion has killed more people than any other single motivation, which "motivation" being the key word....sure, people kill people, but why? There are reasons hy people kill people, and religion has been the biggest reason throughout the history of humanity.

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reply to mags2

Re: Religion for what it's *really* worth

said by mags2:

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Again, very well said, BrianDamage. Your statements represent just one of the reasons why the symbol for peace is an upside down broken cross.

[text was edited by author 2002-03-25 09:32:48]

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An upside down broken cross is just one interpretation of the symbol. The origins of the logo date back to 1958 during the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain. It is based in part on naval semaphore signalling the letters ND.
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Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty. -T.Jefferson

reply to SRFireside

Re: Church members