I love the apocrypha. I particularly like the stories of Jesus as a child, where he 'zaps' one of his friends ...

And this one

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Religion

Good link - think I've stumbled upon something in there ...

Ooohh.... looks like anyone who emigrates to Australia is screwed too ...

Hutch, you're on top form today m'dear
xxx

Oh well I'm screwed anyway! But I like the desires bit

Ooo I like that one!

So why are they so desperate to get other people to join then? Surely, if they are the chosen ones, then they are reducing their chances of making it by recruiting other people?

S

Don't they think they get a "better" place in heaven if they recruit more people?

Could be way off mark here, but I seem to recall the people they recruit will get to stay on the "new earth".

Almost like a competition to get into heaven

Exactly. Never understood it myself.

I remember being in Melboune a few years ago and there was a JW 'do' in the stadium next to the park we were in (can't remember the name - Carlton area) and there were so many people there I kept thinking 'well that's at least a quarter of all of the ones allowed in, and this is a Saturday afternoon in Melbourne'!!

Graham

That'll be Princes Park. The Dalai Lama was there a few weeks ago, so it seems Princes Park is one of the few institutions which is ripping off religion, whatever the flavour....a nice turn round from the norm

I see the bible as nothing more than a complex and convoluted method of social control, particularly when you place it in the context of when it was written. It features on all the stuff that people didn't and couldn't hope to understand - Fire and brimstone, floods, plagues, slavery. These are all things that really mattered to people 2000 years ago, when there existence was much more marginal than it is now. They were very afraid of these things, so they toed the line that the local preachers gave them. "If you sin, there will be a huge flood, or a plague." If that happened, they couldn't just ship in a load of fruit and veg from the next state - it meant people would die en masse.

People were afraid of thunder - they didn't and couldn't understand it. But now, we have flown through the upper limits of the atmosphere and we know that there is nothing to be scared of up there.

I think that as we have pushed the boundaries of scientific exploration further and further, religion has started to lose much of it's context, and much of the fear that the social controllers wanted to instill is lost. There are some very good teachings in the bible - don't kill people for a start. But then Yoda gives some very good teachings too. Why don't we listen to him?

In many ways, we have moved the social control on a great leap. A big one now is climate change. Is this a real concern, or is it yet another method of social control. People really want to believe that they are doing their bit and the right thing to help save the planet. Is this actually the new religion of an enlightened species. 2000 years ago, people went to temples to pray to lead a good life. Now they put their old plastic bottles out for recycling, and cycle to work. It makes them feel that they are doing the right thing, but who is organising it all?

S

A very western perspective there - don't forget there are still millions and millions of people who live hand to mouth, who do not understand diseases and natural disasters. Plus until a few hundred years ago the majority of people would not have had access to a bible anyway, and if they did they wouldn't have been able to read it because a) they were illiterate and b) it was in latin anyway.

What? Would YOU want to be 45,000 feet up in a thunder storm? I would argue there is still plenty to be scared of up there! And a lot that is still not properly understood by scientists, although it is a fascinating field of research.

Isn't jedi an official religion, I think? Again I would say this is a largely western/developed world perspective, not applicable to a lot of people in the world.


I read an excellent book a while ago which was based on the premise that the whole 'climate change' theory was just created by governments and secret agencies to keep everyone focused on something since the end of the cold war - it was called 'state of fear' or 'climate of fear' or something. It was an extremely interesting blend of genuine scientific research & conspiracy theory with a generous dose of artistic license thrown in.
Also saw a programme that followed some recycling, and it got dumped on some indonesian island where people scavenged from it. They took back some of the paper to the people who'd put it in their recycling boxes (one from a BBC person! they were letters with addresses on) and asked them what they thought. Not impressed, needless to say!

And let's not forget that slavery is still alive and well in the world.



I think even some people put it down in the census as their religion....

Sounds like Orwell's concept of a perpetual state of war.

I hope that wasn't aimed at me... <whistles innocently>

S