It may have seemed a good idea at the time, religion ... but really, when we take the short route and identify the main theme of most, if not all, religions ... then what's the mystery here?
When dealing with abstractions
one should treat them as such
if not, one is mistaken, dishonest
or ...... but let's not go there .....
Religion may have started out quite innocently - meant to convey and direct by means of all sorts of symbolism towards truth' - soon it became misconception. Eventually, wittingly or unwittingly, it became misdirection and finally turned organized and institutionalized.
See "Cargo Cults"; a micro of the macro, to get an idea of how the religion principle 'works'; how it starts out and what it, over time, turns in to (mimicry).
If "your" 'God' happens to like and dislike
the same things you do, it kind of exposes
the mystery ... doesn't it?
When we identify the main theme of, and shared by, most, if not all, religions, then we will find religion rather mundane; policy; humbuggery even.
When assertions can only be accepted on faith, it is acknowledged what is proposed cannot be taken on its own merits.
The pontifications of people throughout history appear to be more about wishful thinking regarding traits of "God" than anything else. "God" as described by people, is nothing more than projection. And then, to form vast institutions that study and advocate one hypothesis over another and have those institutions spawn cultures and spin-off institutions that go to war for their ideals for 1000's of years, each side having their "prophets" and "chosen", and each side giving promise to what will happen in the afterlife, seems to indicate that the religious parts of all this is an arce; a load of BS the world has been sold in A GLOBAL RELIGIOUS CONSPIRITCY TO DOMINATE MANKIND!
If believers would actually know
what they claim the know, they would be
known as knowers, not as believers
Cheekyness aside, the religious institutions do seem to lack credibility for themselves and their actions. "Christianity" for instance, is a self-evident example of this:
There are millions and millions of "Christians" the world all over; they make up about one-third of the world population. When all, most, the majority or a majority of these "Christians" would act in accordance with what "the word" is supposed to mean and/or stand for, the world would be a different place. It isn't.
And that, my friends, tells us more than any believer ever could, yet does.
The problem ardent believers face
is that explicit entails implicit, always.
The implications of their own dogmas
undermine the explicit doctrine those
dogmas depend upon.
I rest the case
rejected and denied by many, accepted and embraced by few : incontrovertibility
- it is not what we (think we) know that matters, it is what we can show true that does
as the maxim demands; truth is demonstrably fact and fact is demonstrably true
everything else ... mere BS -
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