INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Calavera on January 17, 2013, 03:30:47 PM
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One of the reasons I ditched the Christian faith some years ago was exactly that I couldn't really see what good tangible thing faith could do for me that a lack of it could not.
Since there are believers here, I thought it'd be good if any believer could share what exactly is beneficial (or, rather, advantageous) about having a religion or faith.
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I am not religious. I know you asked for opinions from believers, and i am not. I have tried to believe.
I can think of several advantages, but always more disadvantages.
A comfort when dealing with death. Inclusion into a group. Requires little thought about morals and how to live - just follow the book, etc
actually read this, it is a post i made a while ago. I just read it again, and thought 'yes' that is how i think...
http://www.intensitysquared.com/index.php/topic,16767.msg734667.html#msg734667 (http://www.intensitysquared.com/index.php/topic,16767.msg734667.html#msg734667) :laugh:
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Wow, great post. You obviously gave it a very good thought there.
Concerning what you said in this thread, all good and dandy, but inclusion into a group can be achieved without a need for religion and I know some atheists who haven't given much thought about morals as well. A lot of it is engrained in the mind through evolution anyway. So it's subconscious.
As for comfort when dealing with death, I guess that would be one advantage of having a religion.
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In the past 13 months I have held the hand of three grandparents and watched them die. Two of them had absolute faith and were not scared in the slightest. The other one not so much. That alone seems nice.
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At it's best, religion or faith can give people a sense of being loved, and belonging that makes them very much part of this world, not navel staring, or longing for heaven. At it's worst, religion or faith make a bunch of people huddle together, against the rest of the world, thinking of the reward that will be theirs.
Today, I read my newspaper, and missed being part of a church. Two articles, one of a church arranging lots of practical help for people in and outside their church, who, due to economising, could not get the psychological/psychiatric help they needed without that help. The other some people with faith, who trained dropout youngsters, who had been given up by professional youthworkers, to get the kids a job, the stamina to do the job, and the sense of being part of this society, because of the job they were trained to do. None of these people were thinking about glory in the afterlife. Faith for them meant connecting with people outside their comfortzone.
Faith in itself, is as strong as music, literature, language. It is what is being done with it that gives it meaning.