Re: What would you take with you on the ultimate biking road trip,if you could make one ?


"S'mee" <stevenkeith2@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8b23ee64-f5db-4821-9495-69c03fc48bec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


In the end god is something created by our species so that others can
gain by the work of others and or control their lives. Quiet simple
it's all about POWER over others, nothing complicated to it really.

No, it is not. It is a shame you have such a limited view of religion.

Religion exists because nobody knows what happens to you after
you die, and few people want to believe that their thoughts and
feelings are tied to their biological existence and simply disappear
after death.

The entire Jesus story is all about Jesus dying and rising. The story
is intended to give hope to people that there is life after death.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this. In fact, I daresay
that there are a large number of people who if they really believed
that they would simply disappear after death, they would act in
a horrible manner to their fellow men.

The unfortunate problem is that a large number of people in history
have warped the ideas of religion to serve their own ends.

For example, a popular teaching in the Christian religion is that people
should not get too attached to possessions - this is actually a restatement
of one of the 10 commandments - thou shall not covet thy
neighbors possessions. The Christians say it with the "more difficult
to get a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven"
statement.

However, the Christian teachings do not forbid people from
getting rich. It's perfectly OK to be rich if you don't care about being
rich, and would be just as content being poor - which is why
philopanthropy is so important among wealthy Christians, it is
also a fundamental tenant that supports the inhearitance laws
that seek to take most wealth away from a family when a rich
person dies, and it is why many rich Christians empty most
of their estates making large bequests to the church when they
die - the idea is that while they may not have the will to let go
of most of their money while alive, at least they are doing it
at death, so they can be poor and thus get into Heaven more
easily.

Yet, despite all of this, throughout history there have been people
who have twisted this, by taking quotes of the teachings out of
context, to try to convince poor people they should be happy staying
poor because they are going to be rewarded in heaven, etc.

The actual teachings on this aren't about control or power. They
aren't about keeping people down. Your problem is that you
have listened to the evil and misguided people who have deliberately
or inadvertantly warped the religion's teachings around, and you
think that their lies are what the religion is all about.

The same exact problem exists with Islam, you have Ayatollas
taking things out of context, and making evil statements as a result -
so people then write off Islam too.

The actual truth is that the VAST majority of human actions and
human history is about gaining and keeping control over things
and over other people. Religion, and That God Thing, is one
of the very few areas in human history that at least, has a speck
where this is NOT going on.

Ted


.

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