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Post by Ginnie on Jul 12, 2007 18:52:29 GMT -4
This may be totally senseless, but I'll put it out there:
If you could invent a religion - and have that religion be the truth for the whole universe. What elements would you put in it? e.g. What type of God? Deist: Supernatural Intelligence whose activities are confined to setting up the that govern the universe, but never interferes thereafter and has no interest in human affairs.
Theist: Creates the universe, answers prayers, forgives sins, reads our thoughts, intervenes in worldly affairs, performs miracles.
Pantheism: a synonym for the laws of the universe. Almost not a real God at all.
Or pick and choose and add whatever elements you want.
Would you have angels, saints, prophets, priests, evil demi-gods, semi-gods etc? How about ritual, prayer, churchs or meeting places, relics, special costumes, holy places? An absolute morality or subjective morality? Good and evil? Would all creatures have souls? Or just mankind? Would there be an afterlife? Re-incarnation? A heaven and/or hell? Would there be some type of punishment for evil behavior? Or rewards for good behavior? Could you communicate with a supreme being? And how? Would you have holy books? Divine inspiration? I'm sure you could think of many more.
My son told me that no one would reply to a thread like this. He said that people who already belong to a religion would be spiritually satisfied with what they have, and an Atheist wouldn't bother. I told him it was just an exercise in imaginative thinking, like playing a game. Anyone want to play?
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jul 12, 2007 19:13:15 GMT -4
Not much imagination here, as I'm cribbing this from a friend.
1. Be nice to each other. 2. Have a good time.
What more do you need?
Fred
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Post by BertL on Jul 12, 2007 19:17:54 GMT -4
Here comes my list of ten commandments I do my stinkin' best to keep myself on. It's in random order. 1. Thy shall be reasonable. 2. Thy shall not hate. 3. Thy shall be nice to thy fellow human. 4. Thy shall be tolerant to everybody. 5. Thy shall love. 6. Thy shall not kill. 7. Thy shall not steal. 8. Thy shall help thy fellow human. 9. Thy shall share, up to an extent. 10. Thy shall not be offensive.
They all boil down to being nice to each other, anyways. However in this way there's less confusion on what "nice" means.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 12, 2007 23:09:42 GMT -4
That should be "thou shalt" - not "thy shall", Bert.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 12, 2007 23:12:11 GMT -4
Frankly I don't trust myself to make up the one true religion. I'd come up with something that didn't work right and the universe would self destruct.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Jul 12, 2007 23:31:55 GMT -4
My God would be a scientist and the universe his experiment. He began the process with the big bang, and maybe gave humans an evolutionary push or two, but for the most part he wouldn't interfere because that would skew his results.
He wouldn't punish us for wanting to understand the universe, he would be pleased by it. He wouldn't expect to be worshiped any more than you or I would expect to be worshiped by someone from a more primitive culture. He would think all of our current religions were curiosities the same way we look at ancient Egyptian or Roman religions today.
As for whether we have a spirit, or an after-life... well, I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Maybe we are recycled after we die... he wouldn't want to waste that perfectly good lab material. Evil people may be seen by him as "spoiled" (like a bad egg) and discarded.
I guess that would make my God a deist.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Jul 12, 2007 23:36:14 GMT -4
1. Be nice to each other. 2. Have a good time. What more do you need? Sounds good to me.
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Post by Ginnie on Jul 13, 2007 0:43:26 GMT -4
Frankly I don't trust myself to make up the one true religion. I'd come up with something that didn't work right and the universe would self destruct. I was just thinking about that . I think I would leave everything the way it is and just try to figure it out.
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Post by pzkpfw on Jul 13, 2007 1:39:54 GMT -4
I couldn't invent a religion, because it would have to be based on a Diety who actually did something useful in our day to day lives.
I mean, if people who commit certain crimes can't be zapped by lightning (possible before doing their deed in the first place), what's the use of the diety?
It's hard to make-believe about make-believe. I can't worship the God of "thou shalt not take the last coffee stirrer without refilling the stirrer holder" when I can't demonstrate the swine who does that getting zapped.
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Post by BertL on Jul 13, 2007 4:56:13 GMT -4
That should be "thou shalt" - not "thy shall", Bert. Oh, sorry. I've never had an English bible. My ten commandments hardly make for a religion anyways.
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Post by echnaton on Jul 13, 2007 8:58:27 GMT -4
My rules would be 1. You are God's holy temple on earth, treat yourself with reverence. 2. Do unto other as you would have them do unto you. 3. Love each other.
The entire problem from there would be to stop people from being people and going off in all directions no matter what anyone else says, including God. I have no idea haw to make a religion that prevents human nature from coming out. About all we can do is offer acceptance and support to those who repent and take actions to change their ways.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 13, 2007 11:34:02 GMT -4
I couldn't invent a religion, because it would have to be based on a Diety who actually did something useful in our day to day lives. I mean, if people who commit certain crimes can't be zapped by lightning (possible before doing their deed in the first place), what's the use of the diety? Ever seen A Clockwork Orange or read the book? The whole message of that story is that taking away Alex's ability to chose to do evil was actually a greater evil than the evil he was doing. Or how about Minority Report (the movie). In that one people are being caught and charged for murders before they actually commit them. Is it moral to imprison people for something they haven't actually done yet? The movie kind of does a cop-out on that question by showing that the pre-cogs can make mistakes.
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furi
Mars
The Secret is to keep banging those rocks together.
Posts: 260
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Post by furi on Jul 13, 2007 12:41:31 GMT -4
As an Atheist I shouldn't bother, but if I had to have a god thrust upon me, It would certainly be a Pantheon of individuals that had acquired the earth from others of which they have no firm knowledge of exactly what was there or how a whole cloth was spun, apart from one or two major forces that still might threaten them, Personally Assisting Squabbling Fighting Favouring as each of their own needs require, and communing with one and all on an interpersonal nature assisting lesser and greater beings either for personal material gain or internal altruism So I suppose my ideal system would be a world of individuals each with no real physical Uber Power apart from those that could be gained through training and in touch with the physical world of reality, Sort of like the Human Race then
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Post by Bill Thompson on Jul 19, 2007 0:38:10 GMT -4
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Post by ishmael on Jul 19, 2007 16:50:43 GMT -4
Some of these are pretty good. Very nice and elevated, but so vague as to be meaningless.
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