What is the ultimate point of a religion?

[clapstyx]

It seems an obvious question but one that I've never heard explained.

I dont know about you but to me it seems the obvious place to start of we were to seek harmony between them. Logically they all seek to create a more positive life experience, at least I think that was the point of Christianity. By my understanding of the concept I think you could infer that a truly positive religion would encourage its followers to pursue perfect goal outcomes. I say that becuase whether they are designed to result in a presence in the ultimate format of harmony (heaven) or the highest potential level of consciousness they are all designed to achieve the highest and most absolute ultimate of some type. To me it makes no sense to pursue anything less than the perfect goal so I believe it is incumbent on all religions to outline what they consider them to be. Once these have been determined only the strategic pathways to these points needs to be evaluated to see which will logically result in those outcomes...or am I wrong? The perfect outcome arrived at in the most perfect way would seem to be the all encompassing dynamic. From my understanding religions are designed to be a collective pursuit of a commonly desireable ultimate.

When you look at it from that point of view I feel its time mankind grew up a bit and set out the goals that it seeks to consciously progress towards so that we have a sense of where we are in relation to those and a sense of the time we are in. I'd like to kick that process off, if I could, by outlaying a concept of the universe that we might agree or disagree with. For me the ideal universe to seek to create or exist within is based on a single celled organism with a boundary of life at the outer perimeter expanding at the speed of light and with the Earth as its simbiotic core. The soul or consciousness would then travel between the two. It may already be that the universe operates this way and we send messages with our thoughts (prayers) or it may be that we ultimately wish to create a universe that is in its finality set up this way. Either way I feel that if we are to pursue things such as space exploration we need to have some sort of conscious sense of what we wish to be the ultimate purpose of progress and then guage our advancement relative to that ultimate pursuit. In that sense I believe we need to define all of our ultimate goals in terms of absolute superlatives at the peak of our imaginations because unless we do we are unlikely to gain full consensus and support. Our chances are better if the goals are impeccable.

This I think has been the great downfall of the industrial revolution because as I understood it the idea was for machines to do all of the work for us and clearly this is not the case and the quality of life for most people in the industrialised world is now rapidly diminishing. Our ecosystems are failing, we have little time to spend with our children and by and large we spend more time in front of the television than we do personally living the experiences it portrays.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by clapstyx

From my understanding religions are designed to be a collective pursuit of a commonly desireable ultimate.

This question has been discussed here many times before, but I will gladly offer you an answer. Religion is a method of control, a way to assuage the axieties of the populace, and a method of increasing cohesion among small subsets of society. It's about putting power in the hands of the few, and decreasing fears of that which is unknown.

Also, your discussion of downfalls, failing ecosystems, and diminished quality of life shows a clear confusion between correlation and causation. Just because the mercury in my thermometer rises higher than it did in the years before does not mean that the thermometer is causing climate change.

[BluesMan]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

This question has been discussed here many times before, but I will gladly offer you an answer. Religion is a method of control, a way to assuage the axieties of the populace, and a method of increasing cohesion among small subsets of society. It's about putting power in the hands of the few, and decreasing fears of that which is unknown.

Interesting point, I would see your answer as more relevant to the coruption of a religion.

The purpose may be to explain what one/society does not understand, or refuses to accept.

[Buffy]

To expand on what InfiniteNow just said: its important to realize that up until modern times, religion and government have been inextricably linked. In some of the oldest recorded societies such as Ancient Egypt, the Pharoah *was* a God.

So while it is sometimes popular to frame the mysticism as superfluous to humanity, in fact it was an essential organizing principle behind society. Here's the parable I learned when I was a kid: A guy is trying to grow crops and stay alive. A priest comes down the road and says, "if you make a sacrifice to the gods and give me some fish and put some in the ground, your crops will grow faster." The guy does it and the crops grow faster! The next month the priest comes down the road and says "you'd better harvest this week because God is mad and is going to punish us all for not worshiping him enough". The next day there's a huge storm and the guy's crops are wiped out. The priest of course had noticed the ring around the moon and the wind picking up, but then he's the only one with the time to waste on figuring out such esoteric cause and effect relationships. The guy though is convinved that the priest is God's messenger, and always listens to whatever he says.

Pretty good way to create a governmental hierarchy huh?

Necessity is the mother of religion,
Buffy

[BluesMan]

I still think using that logic would be the somewhat the same as saying the purpose of rope is to tie people up and to hang someone.
It only points out the negative use of something. Not it's original purpose.

[BluesMan]

Now to contradict myself; Religion is the organized and political manifestation of spirituality.
I deeply respect spiritual people but religious people scare the crap out of me.


Oh make up your mind Bluesman

[Lancaster]

InfiniteNow is correct. Religion/Faith is a control. A control over fears, a control over impulses (good and bad), a control over mind and a control over body. It is used as a control by leaders and a control by parents. It is a personal control and a control that is inflicted by others. It is a speed bump on free thought and on humanity's progression as a whole.

I think the only reason I can say this is that I have experienced it first hand, on a level that could not be more personal.

[arkain101]

The ultimate point of a religion is a paradox.

There would not be a r-e-l-i-g-i-o-n if there was a comman ultimate point.

What does the word RE-Ligion come from?

Is it like RE-pent? Pent, the top, the pent house, the high place. re: to get back, return, recieve. repent! go back to the top.

I am no scholar, but I wonder does re-ligion, associate with LEGION?

legion:
-a large military unit; "the French Foreign Legion"
-horde: a vast multitude
-(note this is not preaching) Legion is a demon, and can be found in the Bible in. (A parallel version of the story can be found in Matthew 8:28-34, but this version does not contain the name "Legion" and tells of two men, not just one, possessed by a multitude of demons.)


I wonder is RE-Ligion at all associate to go back to legions, and hordes that play out an ajenda commanded by its political leaders? This I do not know...

So anyway, with that said, what is the ajenda of any political system? To lead a legion is it not? To grow and war and conquor.

How often do we see an ajenda of a country uniting TEACH with Prosper?

It is, keep them stupid, and it is simple.

Political systems throw in distractions to keep you busy, scared, struggling in order to what? Keep order, for an empire that the leaders control, and prosper in. 95% of the money with 5% of the people. 95% of the people, containing 5% of the money.

It is not money that is the point here. It is wealth, and well being. 95% of the well being, is kept at bay by 5% of the people.

What really does our world need? A larger difference in well being? Is this the direction any of us want to go?

I think our world needs to find ajenda's that want to spread well being and education, and esteem. We are so incredibly unefficient in the systems we have today it blows my mind.

However, my summerisation of all the lessons taught in bibles that religions do use is its ajenda is to teach us how to learn how make humanity prosper, and be wealthy (food, cloths, peace, shelter, water, friends, joy, well being), HERE NOW ON EARTH. The word and purpose of the context of Sin is not put fear in us and make us feel guilty in how we live. It is to teach us that CONSTRUCTIVE behavior is more efficient than DESTRUCTIVE behavior. Sin is destructive behavior. It isnt Morality.

There is a comman teaching in the bible that goes something like: "RE-PENT from SIN".

This does not appera to mean, stop living the way you like to live, nor feel guilt and bad and sick and oppressed.

It means Rise above destruction and greed.

Religion messes with the context of what has been recorded and taught as wisdom and its leaders use that lesson and convict you of being a SINNER!

As in you are lower than they. But quite likewise there is no such thing, ALL MEN ARE EQUAL and no ONE can NOT be a sinner because we are always learning and making mistakes. The lesson is that if we aim to be constructive our lives will become of more wealth and peace.

I am doing my best not to make this appear as preaching. I am just sharing my findings of useful information written in a book, that seems simple to us, but just take a look at the world, its still a very useful peice of info.

[Boerseun]

Religion is a social organising and moderating force, unifying distant tribes to a common purpose; the first steps in nation-building in the absence of central government. It could very well be argued that states, nations and governments would have been wholly impossible without the intermediary step of religions unifying populations to the extent where proper government becomes possible. This, of course, is not to say that modern government is the ultimate end of our social evolution; we're still at the beginning of governmental evolution. There's still hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us for this to play itself out.

But in my mind, religion is a relic of the forces that formed us socially, and had its day.

[pgrmdave]

The question is very different when asked internally vs. externally. Internal to the religion, the ultimate point may vary depending on the religion, but all seem to agree on one thing - they seek spiritual truth (whatever that means...). This truth to them is real, even if it isn't tangible. External to religion, it is a way of maintaining order, maintaining morality (although no system is perfect, it makes the attempt), and comforting people during difficult times (at least that's been my experiance with all religions so far).