Is Religion Just Making Stuff Up?

[Quintessence]

Or perhaps, just maybe, there is a small chance, that I don't see the two as equivalent.

You're free to elaborate on your thoughts at any time instead of responding with obfuscatory sarcasm (or at least that's what I'm thinking this is... I'm honestly not sure).

Regardless, framing like "just making stuff up" makes it sound like the subject being spoken of is baseless whimsy with no purpose and should be treated dismissively. Was this or was this not your intention?

 

[SabahTheLoner]

Read the forums, I see it all over the place. People making claims about what gods there are, how they think, what the want, making claims about the afterlife, going on about what heaven is, what hell is, making claims about creation, "God's" purpose for life, and just a wide variety of various stuff. A good chunk of religion is just people making stuff up. You can pretend that is not part of it all you want, but the proof is in these forums.

There is a difference between making stuff up and using previous explanations to create a new explanation backed up by prove. You don't have to agree with it at all, but enough people do agree it to make it ligit, regardless of where you stand. I, for example, think that God can't exist as an omnipotent being because it would be paradoxical, but some people think such a being exists, and I'm not exactly inclined to tell them they are wrong because it must be the byproduct of what they observed. Wether or not it is truthful cannot be proven.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

You're free to elaborate on your thoughts at any time instead of responding with obfuscatory sarcasm (or at least that's what I'm thinking this is... I'm honestly not sure).

Regardless, framing like "just making stuff up" makes it sound like the subject being spoken of is baseless whimsy with no purpose and should be treated dismissively. Was this or was this not your intention?

"You're free to elaborate on your thoughts at any time "

I already did. Post #16.

 

[LuisDantas]

Interesting you bring that up, because divorcing the meanings of these two is a relatively recent phenomena in Western culture. I don't agree with the reasoning behind that divorce, in no small part because the reasoning applies very poorly to religions outside of Western (aka, Abrahamic monotheist) ones. I just plain don't use the term "spirituality." It's all religion to me, and that's how it was traditionally understood anyway. It's not "watering down" or "bending," and I see little benefit to describing disagreements about word usage in such judgmental terms.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

There is a difference between making stuff up and using previous explanations to create a new explanation backed up by prove. You don't have to agree with it at all, but enough people do agree it to make it ligit, regardless of where you stand. I, for example, think that God can't exist as an omnipotent being because it would be paradoxical, but some people think such a being exists, and I'm not exactly inclined to tell them they are wrong because it must be the byproduct of what they observed. Wether or not it is truthful cannot be proven.

"There is a difference between making stuff up and using previous explanations to create a new explanation"

No, there is not.

"backed up by prove"

I don't know what that means.

"enough people do agree it to make it ligit, regardless of where you stand"

No, it doesn't.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

So is religion just making stuff up?

No, most of religion is people believing what other people made up. Very few people make anything up themselves, and even fewer have any talent for it.

Then again, most of everything is people believing what other people made up (or discovered, observed, etc.) For example, sadly, most atheists I've spoken to at any length about evolution, tend to have no better understanding of it than creationists, even though they accept it.

 

[crowfeather]

*** Feel free to make arguments for subjective centered knowledge, but know that I reject all claims of "spiritual enlightenment" or the like. I find people who assume they have some type special transcend insight egotistical and smug.

crows do not go off-topic. Humans are not good at dot-joining, or lateral movement.

 

[crowfeather]

The atheist doesn't know anything. And assumes that since this is the case, then nobody knows anything.
That's closed-minded.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

crows do not go off-topic. Humans are not good at dot-joining, or lateral movement.

Crows are birds and they are much too dumb for the sophistication of the human written language.

 

[crowfeather]

Yet crows know how to communicate via written language; something many humans do not.

 

[SabahTheLoner]

The atheist doesn't know anything. And assumes that since this is the case, then nobody knows anything.
That's closed-minded.

Agnosticism is not knowing. Atheism is a "negative" stance, the opposite of thiesm. Anyone who believe in extreme forms of any of these that assumes their personal belief applies to everyone is indeed close-minded. Not all atheists assume that everyone holds or should hold their personal mindset.

 

[crowfeather]

All the atheists here do.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Yet crows know how to communicate via written language; something many humans do not.

Unless the human has some type of metal disability, they can learn multiple written languages. Just because some people have not yet learned how to write that does not mean they are too stupid to learn how to write. That was incredibly shallow of you.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

How about a human that pretends he is a crow? Talk about making stuff up.

 

[Nakosis]

One of my most central criticisms of Religion is that people simply don't have the knowledge it must suppose to support it claims. In other-words it seems like a bunch of people just making stuff up. So is religion just making stuff up?

*** Feel free to make arguments for subjective centered knowledge, but know that I reject all claims of "spiritual enlightenment" or the like. I find people who assume they have some type special transcend insight egotistical and smug.

People have "spiritual" experiences. Some of it's dreams some visions. People actually believe they have had a supernatural experience. I suspect a lot of people have had these types of experiences and if you haven't it'd be hard to understand the reality these experiences take on. Also I don't think they necessarily made anything up, they just maybe filled in some of the gaps. More like creating a theory based on what they experienced.

Then what happens is one group come into power and creates a ruling class. These elites have more time for abstract thinking so create stories to explain their world which includes such spiritual experiences. Since they have the power, they can enforce the acceptance of these stories which lacking any other knowledge, explain the reality the common folks experience. A national religion gets created.

These dreams/visions then have a ready explanation offered by these religious stories which reinforces the belief in the religion.

So a person may have a dream/vision/spiritual feeling which is understood according to their religious belief.

I also suspect that belief predisposes folks to these spiritual experiences. Given enough belief/faith the mind can create these types of experiences. Whereas if your a skeptic, your subconscious mind is less likely to create these spiritual experiences for you. It still may happen though. Like the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus after such an experience was converted to Christianity, maybe brought on by his own guilt of his atrocities committed towards Christians.

Did Paul make everything up? Not entirely. He just put two and two together and created a logical understanding based on his experience and what he otherwise knew to be true.

 

[crowfeather]

Shallow is something I certainly am not. I operate on multiple planes and in many dimensions.
To the truly shallow, this suggests that I am shallow.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Shallow is something I certainly am not. I operate on multiple planes and in many dimensions.
To the truly shallow, this suggests that I am shallow.

"I operate on multiple planes and in many dimensions."

Another example of making stuff up.

 

[SabahTheLoner]

All the atheists here do.

As an atheist of sorts I will promptly disagree with this statement and end all further interactions with this topic.

 

[Quintessence]

"You're free to elaborate on your thoughts at any time "

I already did. Post #16.

Yes, I did notice that after making the post, though unfortunately the post doesn't really illuminate anything about how you view the relationship between religions and storytelling. Still curious for clarification to the direct question posed, though:

Framing like "just making stuff up" makes it sound like the subject being spoken of is baseless whimsy with no purpose and should be treated dismissively. It's a derogatory way of referring to the subject at hand. Was this or was this not your intended meaning?

 

[crowfeather]

When egotisticals encounter a lack of ego, they panic and run for the hills. This is as it should be.