This is what belief systems can do to you in your formative years.

[DRM]

I was brought up as a Methodist and attended Sunday school for only a short period. Other than that, we seldom attended except for Christenings, Weddings and Funerals.

I also attended a C of E primary school and was taught Religious Education.

Because of this mild indoctrination, it has taken me the best years of my life to realise that there is no God and that all religions are nothing more than cults.

When you compare my upbringing to that of a young Islamist is it any wonder that we now have all these fundamentalists committing atrocities in the name of Allah?

This is just one of many to be found on YouTube.

 

[handyjack]

 

[DRM]

I was going to 'Like' your post, but how could anyone like that!

 

[Doggit]

Any society that defines itself mainly by it's religion, is always going to be indoctrinated, but you can't completely indoctrinate someone that thinks for themselves - as you did. Muslims don't commit acts of terrorism, but fanatics with that sort of disposition, are happy to go along with anything that resonates with their inner core beliefs. There's a popular misconception that you can hypnotise someone in to committing murder, but as no right minded person would ever do that, you need to find the person who would happily commit murder, and then just give them an excuse to do so.

You could argue that fanatical Muslims are the "cult" side of Islam, and that's why we won't solve this problem until the Muslim community polices the fanatics within it's ranks.

But trust me, there is a Creator, and he/she/it, is nothing like most people assume God to be, but as Robbie Williams wrote in a song, "I sit and talk to God, and he just laughs at my plans".

 

[sooey]

But trust me, there is a Creator

How do you know?

 

[Doggit]

Now is that a serious question, or just a closed mind belief in the world as you understand it to be.

 

[sooey]

You say trust you there is a creator. How do you know?

 

[Doggit]

At 62, I've been in the spiritualist movement for many years - and yet I wouldn't consider myself to be a standard spiritualist. My mother was a trance medium, but she kept it quiet, and I never knew it till many years later. I consider myself to have been very privileged for some of the people that I've met, and the things I've seen and learnt, and I have no understanding of why I see the world in a different light to others. My life has never been planned, but just seems to keep unfolding as I move through it.

It's said that there are as many planets in the universe, as there are grains of sand on a beach, yet the standard view of God is that he is in charge of our world, and the rest just float there in the background but only man could be so arrogant to think the universe revolves around him. There has to be other life out there, but do we assume that God is so omnipotent that he's dealing with everything. Just as the managing director of a company doesn't handle every department, so he delegates, and the managers then report to him. So why are there so many galaxies out there, each with thousands of suns, and millions of planets in them if there isn't something greater going on, and a higher being looking at what we get up to, and just smiling at how we struggle over so many unnecessary things.

 

[sooey]

So why are there so many galaxies out there, each with thousands of suns, and millions of planets in them if there isn't something greater going on, and a higher being looking at what we get up to, and just smiling at how we struggle over so many unnecessary things.

You're actually underestimating the size of the universe by a large factor there.
It's believed that there are something like a hundred thousand million or so galaxies, and the average galaxy contains something like a hundred thousand million stars.
That's a lot of stars and a lot of potential planets with potential for life, even if only one in a million are habitable. But how does that prove a creator?

 

[EFLImpudence]

We don't know.

That's why people (used to - still do?) make up stories to comfort themselves in the only way they know and can imagine; someone must have made it and us.

Like old sci-fi films. The authors thought up futuristic machines and apparatus - but they still had big knobs (the machines, that is) because they didn't know about transistors.

 

[Doggit]

Unfortunately Sooey, I can't prove it to you whatsoever, all I can give you, is an idea to think about, and then see if your life starts to change, because EFL is essentially right. People need to feel there's someone higher out there that will sort out their problems for them, and the Church took an idea that was supposed to make people better, and twisted it to their own ends; and then made people afraid to think for themselves, or too scared to step out line.

But there's so much documented evidence of past lives available, that people will soon start to wake up, and change their view of how their world has been constructed. It's just that some will take longer than others.

 

[sooey]

Sorry, that doesn't mean anything to me. Also I don't feel the need for someone higher to sort things out.
A nice win on the lottery would do. But if that happened I'd KNOW there was a god...cos I never do it.

 

[nauseous]

Eh, God delegating?

 

[Foxtrot Oscar]

Eh, God delegating?

Those useless middle managers get everywhere...Hmmm, does the position come with a company car?

 

[DRM]

What I have just read in this thread backs up what I said about indoctrination.

But trust me, if you were a free thinker (non-believer) and made in known, you were punished.

That is why religions had blasphemy laws to deal with people that did not want to be controlled.