Pete

I realize that not all faiths have a belief in an afterlife that resembles that of Christianity (eastern religions from PHIL 330 come to mind). But how about other faiths?

The fundamentalist/Protestant Christian perspective seems to be that God loves all humanity but won't let us into heaven unless we accept Jesus' gift of salvation. If we don't, then we go to hell.

I'm curious whether other faiths, as a general trend, believe that if you don't follow their system then you are misguided/damned. Is this phenomenon fairly constant across all faiths? Or is it relatively confined to those of Judeo-Christian origin?

TheLegendaryNAS

Buddhism, I'm pretty sure, doesn't address it. In fact, I am willing to bet that Eastern religions are alot more tolerant than Western ones.

Islam for sure believes you'll go to hell, AND THEY'LL HELP YOU TOO.

PurdueDoubleE

Intersting question. I'm not even sure what, if anything, the ancient polytheistic religions believed about an afterlife. The ancient Egyptians certainly believed in an afterlife, but I'm not certain about, say, the ancient Greeks.

Josh_Wu

It's the precise reason why I have a bad impression of Christianity. Too many evangelists come up to me and tell me how I need to have faith in blah blah or I'll go to hell. I don't see how they expect me to feel like converting after saying something like that. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislikes Christians in general, just the few zealous ones that feel the need to "help" you.

my family is Daoism although I'm not really into it, and we don't say such things.

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hydrobond

Hindu = reincarnation. If you are bad, you will be reincarnated as something like an earth worm, and if you are good you might get to come back as a human again, or maybe even a cow.

Catholicism was shoved so far down my throat during gradeschool and highschool that I avoid it if I can at this point. I just don't mix well with the way the catholic church opperates.

Anyone else think the world would be better off if there was no such thing as religion?

BoilerBall24

I don't think I would go so far to say the world would be better if there was no such as religion. People have to have something to believe in...whether it's religion or anti-religion. If you want to use this philosophy, we should just say the world would be better off without the ability to think and have a unique opinion.

willwork4gas

I agree with you although I have no experience with it. From what I understand, Buddhists are pretty cool.

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PurdueDoubleE

I felt this needed to be repeated for emphasis. The Catholic Church does so much harm to Christianity it's ridiculous.

PurdueDoubleE

If people don't put their faith in some sort of higher power, they tend to put their faith in megalomaniacal leaders instead. Cult of Personality can be just as powerful as religion.

hydrobond

I'm not sure I agree with you here.
Some people may need something to believe in, some do not.

Im my experience (gradeschool, not so much highschool), and from what I have been hearing about Islamic countries, having religion negates unique opinion.

Im not trying to start a big argument, I'm just saying that it seems a lot of the world's problems wouldn't exist if there was no religion. Silly wishful thinking.

PurdueDoubleE

Communist countries seem to offer an indication that that is not the case at all.

danwest

If you're referring to the USSR, which in effect supressed all religions, then I don't see your point. I don't think the lack of religion contributed much to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

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PurdueDoubleE

It doesn't contribute to the downfall of a country. It contributes to a country having the propensity of the country being oppressive. A defining feature of Communist nations is an absence of religion, and the enforced belief that the state is the ultimate authority, not a god. I think plenty of problems would remain in a world with no religion.

cathryn

that's what i was going to say. pretty much exactly.

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CMetzger42

Better than having to fight wars over religious beliefs and having the state discriminate based on your beliefs or lack thereof. Certainly there'd be problems, just not as many. It'd just be one major thing that we wouldn't have to worry about disagreeing with others on, which would make a big difference considering how divisive most religions are.

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hydrobond

Yes, problems will remain. If you go back and read my post, it says "a lot" not "all" of the world's problems would go away.

BTW, I wasn't talking about suppressing religion, I was imagining a world that never invented religion.

cathryn

do you think people would still "invent" "gods" and ways to worship them? because we don't know how or why we are able to exist, humans will always develop some sort of religion, won't they? what do you guys think?

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PurdueDoubleE

I think the last two world wars would have happened with or without religion. The fighting in the Holy Land seems to be the major world conflict nowadays that is religiously motivated, but most states that oppress and murder their own citizens are non-religious states.

I would say that religion inspires as many good deeds as it does evil deeds, and anyone who can only see one side of the issue is somewhat ignorant.

hydrobond

There were plenty of other wars throughout history that were purely religious. (We even called them holy wars.)

PurdueDoubleE

Yes, but we as a human race seem to be past that point in our history. With the exception of Islamic zealots, the mentality of the Middle Ages is more or less gone. When's the last time one of these "holy wars" was launched?

xero

Jihad! Jihad!

hydrobond

June.

edit: Although it could be argued that this is just a continuation of the last few wars in the Middle East stemming from when Israel was created.

PurdueDoubleE

Well I already pointed out that militant Islam is the exception to what I said. The violence in the Middle East falls under that exception.

voodoo79

bored!

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