2008-08-05, 01:53 AM
I've often heard several claims against religion. Perhaps one of the most common has been pointed at the Israel-Arab conflict over the Palestine region. Many people say, "How terrible. Two religious factions are ruthlessly killing each other. How could anyone possibly believe in religion?" To some extent I agree with them and to some extent I don't.
The reason why I don't agree is because the Arab-Israeli conflict in my mind is not an issue of religion. If you look at numerous countries, we all have numerous religions and are cultural melting pots of diversity. Therefore, the only plausible reason why the Middle East is a volatile region is perhaps because there is a religious divide between Hebrews and Arabs. However, this too isn't substantiated as both the Torah and the Koran advocate peace and moral decision making.
I think at the core root of this issue, religion is being used as an excuse or rather a means to an end in order to achieve some other goal. The "goal" in my personal opinion is "command and conquer." In my honest opinion, the origins of this conflict deal with a fairly noble organization by today's standards, the United Nations.
It is fairly ironic to think of the United Nations as the major catalyst of causing the Arab-Israeli conflict to begin. After all, the United Nations was the successor of it's failed predecessor the League of Nations and was formed in order to prevent a World War III from occurring.
In 1922, the UN in my opinion did something drastically stupid. Even though many people make the claim that hindsight is always 20/20, I think that even for that time period, the UN probably made the stupidest decision that still remains today. They decided to make Palestine a partially Jewish state.
Before they made this decision, Arabs inhabited these territories and built homes in this region. To suddenly have the UN come and go, "Hey guys. Going to have to evict you. We're going to make this region 1/3 UN, 1/3 Israel, and you can have the other 1/3," is simply obnoxious. Imagine some cop barging in your house and telling you that you have to leave because French speaking refugees from Africa want to form a Quebec II.
Arab forces were angry over the UN resolution. Sparks flew and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War broke out. In subjective terms, Israel pretty much kicked ass and claimed much of the territory it has today. But still, there was always a sour note even after the Camp David Accords was signed.
Using this as a pre-text, I always thought that the Arab-Israeli conflict was more of a selfish battle of owning a region of land. Would God really want such bloodshed over a piece of land? Is there a boundary between loving forgiveness and religious intolerance? It's a fine line to walk. And I don't think any religious expert can offer a definitive answer. The ones who usually do are the fundamentalist radicals who usually make far-fetched promises of the world beyond, "Kill 100 Hebrews and you will gain 100 Virgins!"
One thing which I was always curious about is why 100 Virgins? Why not 100 Prostitutes or 100 well-trained strippers? I mean, wouldn't someone want to waste time teaching 100 girls how to properly have sex? Then again, maybe they're scared of getting STDs in heaven. I always wondered what happens to the 100 virgins after they have sex. Are they still virgins? Does the guy get a new girl every time he has intercourse? Interesting. I wonder if there is a "virgin-machine."
Then again, heaven doesn't make much sense to me either. What's so great about heaven? Sure I get to be with God, but I mean, why does everyone make heaven to be so amazing? I mean, it must be pretty boring there because everyone there is more or less perfect. In the New Testament of the Scripture Jesus explains that all sins are seen equal in the eyes of the father. Therefore, stealing candy from your friend is just as grievous a sin as murdering a job competitor to gain the position of Vice President. By this logic, heaven must be spotlessly sinless because one sin makes heaven no better than hell.
So heaven is boring. What about hell? Hm. I always thought hell was a pretty cool place. Pretty chill. There's poker, gambling, and other stuff going on. Only reason why hell might suck is because it's too free. Anarchistic. There's no guidelines and there's drunk people fighting each other everywhere you go. But I mean, it isn't as boring as heaven.
Then there are some that describe afterlife in Purgatory. And that's just no fun. You can keep your purgatory. I'd rather play poker with the Joker or even play an excited round of Bible Bingo with Barnabas.
Branching off yet again, I always read people talking about "Christian this" or "Christian that"- Excuse me brother, "Christianity" might as well be 40 different religions given the # of different denominations there are: Calvinist, Armeniest, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Zwingly, Non-denominational, Biblical, Roman Catholic, Something-Catholic, I Left After CCDC-Catholic.
And yes. There are major differences. I always was impressed that Roman Catholic managed to stay for the most part Roman Catholic-ish. After the Martin Luther reform, holy crow, lots of denominations formed. In some sense, I think this is because the Lutheran approach advocated the love of Jesus and personal contact with God while Catholicism emphasized more of a, "follow the rules. The cardinals/pope/bishop is the word of God." In short, one was more regulated than the other.
Even though I like rules because they regulate things and seem to substantiate a faith, I also remembered that Jesus would criticize the Pharisees who were religious men of the Jewish faith. The Pharisees were often lawyers and believed you had to do "this and that" in order to get into heaven. Perhaps the biggest divide on this issue was the fact that the Pharisees were not following God's law but their own human-made law which they claimed was God's law.
Diverging yet again, I don't believe it possible to criticize anyone else's religion because I'm not God. You're not God. How can we claim we know the voice of God and whose God or gods are correct when we live on this planet for a very short period of time.
You cannot live for God. I apologize if this is your goal in life. But trust me, if God doesn't send you telepathic messages or is your personal parent, then I do not know how you can possible solely live for something which doesn't directly provide messages or assistance to guide you every step of the way. Everyone finds their own meaning in God and interprets the bible to their personal lifestyle. It's pretty cool. But the walk of life originates from inside the person and then reaches out to God.
My personal biased view of God is that he's a Monarchy King. Whatever he believes in is perfect. If you're wrong, you're wrong. In terms of living life, I believe God helps those who help themselves. I mean think about it, talk is cheap. If you don't show some backbone, no one takes you seriously. You have to at least provide people something to work with.
In the end, I always have the most skeptical interpretations of how things can be seen. For example, what if eternal life is nothing more than a reference to the organic process of decomposition. I mean, we get buried, we get eaten by bacteria and worms, and then we benefit the soil. Then hopefully we become good fertilizer for new crops which feed new life. Therefore we are a part of the new generations life and therefore live "eternally." I mean why not.
If you read all that, wow. If you didn't read all that, wow.
The reason why I don't agree is because the Arab-Israeli conflict in my mind is not an issue of religion. If you look at numerous countries, we all have numerous religions and are cultural melting pots of diversity. Therefore, the only plausible reason why the Middle East is a volatile region is perhaps because there is a religious divide between Hebrews and Arabs. However, this too isn't substantiated as both the Torah and the Koran advocate peace and moral decision making.
I think at the core root of this issue, religion is being used as an excuse or rather a means to an end in order to achieve some other goal. The "goal" in my personal opinion is "command and conquer." In my honest opinion, the origins of this conflict deal with a fairly noble organization by today's standards, the United Nations.
It is fairly ironic to think of the United Nations as the major catalyst of causing the Arab-Israeli conflict to begin. After all, the United Nations was the successor of it's failed predecessor the League of Nations and was formed in order to prevent a World War III from occurring.
In 1922, the UN in my opinion did something drastically stupid. Even though many people make the claim that hindsight is always 20/20, I think that even for that time period, the UN probably made the stupidest decision that still remains today. They decided to make Palestine a partially Jewish state.
Before they made this decision, Arabs inhabited these territories and built homes in this region. To suddenly have the UN come and go, "Hey guys. Going to have to evict you. We're going to make this region 1/3 UN, 1/3 Israel, and you can have the other 1/3," is simply obnoxious. Imagine some cop barging in your house and telling you that you have to leave because French speaking refugees from Africa want to form a Quebec II.
Arab forces were angry over the UN resolution. Sparks flew and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War broke out. In subjective terms, Israel pretty much kicked ass and claimed much of the territory it has today. But still, there was always a sour note even after the Camp David Accords was signed.
Using this as a pre-text, I always thought that the Arab-Israeli conflict was more of a selfish battle of owning a region of land. Would God really want such bloodshed over a piece of land? Is there a boundary between loving forgiveness and religious intolerance? It's a fine line to walk. And I don't think any religious expert can offer a definitive answer. The ones who usually do are the fundamentalist radicals who usually make far-fetched promises of the world beyond, "Kill 100 Hebrews and you will gain 100 Virgins!"
One thing which I was always curious about is why 100 Virgins? Why not 100 Prostitutes or 100 well-trained strippers? I mean, wouldn't someone want to waste time teaching 100 girls how to properly have sex? Then again, maybe they're scared of getting STDs in heaven. I always wondered what happens to the 100 virgins after they have sex. Are they still virgins? Does the guy get a new girl every time he has intercourse? Interesting. I wonder if there is a "virgin-machine."
Then again, heaven doesn't make much sense to me either. What's so great about heaven? Sure I get to be with God, but I mean, why does everyone make heaven to be so amazing? I mean, it must be pretty boring there because everyone there is more or less perfect. In the New Testament of the Scripture Jesus explains that all sins are seen equal in the eyes of the father. Therefore, stealing candy from your friend is just as grievous a sin as murdering a job competitor to gain the position of Vice President. By this logic, heaven must be spotlessly sinless because one sin makes heaven no better than hell.
So heaven is boring. What about hell? Hm. I always thought hell was a pretty cool place. Pretty chill. There's poker, gambling, and other stuff going on. Only reason why hell might suck is because it's too free. Anarchistic. There's no guidelines and there's drunk people fighting each other everywhere you go. But I mean, it isn't as boring as heaven.
Then there are some that describe afterlife in Purgatory. And that's just no fun. You can keep your purgatory. I'd rather play poker with the Joker or even play an excited round of Bible Bingo with Barnabas.
Branching off yet again, I always read people talking about "Christian this" or "Christian that"- Excuse me brother, "Christianity" might as well be 40 different religions given the # of different denominations there are: Calvinist, Armeniest, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Zwingly, Non-denominational, Biblical, Roman Catholic, Something-Catholic, I Left After CCDC-Catholic.
And yes. There are major differences. I always was impressed that Roman Catholic managed to stay for the most part Roman Catholic-ish. After the Martin Luther reform, holy crow, lots of denominations formed. In some sense, I think this is because the Lutheran approach advocated the love of Jesus and personal contact with God while Catholicism emphasized more of a, "follow the rules. The cardinals/pope/bishop is the word of God." In short, one was more regulated than the other.
Even though I like rules because they regulate things and seem to substantiate a faith, I also remembered that Jesus would criticize the Pharisees who were religious men of the Jewish faith. The Pharisees were often lawyers and believed you had to do "this and that" in order to get into heaven. Perhaps the biggest divide on this issue was the fact that the Pharisees were not following God's law but their own human-made law which they claimed was God's law.
Diverging yet again, I don't believe it possible to criticize anyone else's religion because I'm not God. You're not God. How can we claim we know the voice of God and whose God or gods are correct when we live on this planet for a very short period of time.
You cannot live for God. I apologize if this is your goal in life. But trust me, if God doesn't send you telepathic messages or is your personal parent, then I do not know how you can possible solely live for something which doesn't directly provide messages or assistance to guide you every step of the way. Everyone finds their own meaning in God and interprets the bible to their personal lifestyle. It's pretty cool. But the walk of life originates from inside the person and then reaches out to God.
My personal biased view of God is that he's a Monarchy King. Whatever he believes in is perfect. If you're wrong, you're wrong. In terms of living life, I believe God helps those who help themselves. I mean think about it, talk is cheap. If you don't show some backbone, no one takes you seriously. You have to at least provide people something to work with.
In the end, I always have the most skeptical interpretations of how things can be seen. For example, what if eternal life is nothing more than a reference to the organic process of decomposition. I mean, we get buried, we get eaten by bacteria and worms, and then we benefit the soil. Then hopefully we become good fertilizer for new crops which feed new life. Therefore we are a part of the new generations life and therefore live "eternally." I mean why not.
If you read all that, wow. If you didn't read all that, wow.