One Government, One Official Language, One Official Religion. Is It Possible?

[Silverbackman]

Originally Posted by Faustus

Then why in the world would you need a religion at all? Frankly, it sounds like people saying, "Well, we need something to... erm... believe in and... uh... make people moral, so... yeah. World religion." I keep asking why some universal religion would be necessary in the slightest, and I don't feel like I'm getting very clear answers (or maybe I'm not understanding the answers I'm getting, I don't know). So I'll ask again: why exactly do we need any religion at all? Talking about humanism, most of the secular humanists I know don't consider it a religion, they consider it a philosophy. And at the end of the day, to me, saying, "We're having an official religion for the whole world" still smacks of, "This is what you should believe, and those who don't are mistaken/less intelligent/thinking primitively." Who wouldn't find that attitude incredibly arrogant and offensive?



Jeez, way to just dismiss the beliefs of millions of people, there, dude. This paragraph sums up exactly why I would never, ever want someone else calling the shots on my religious beliefs- just because you don't believe it doesn't automatically invalidate the whole religion and mean that those who choose to believe in it are "thinking primitively." How completely offensive and condescending. And I'm not even someone who follows a particularly literal interpretation of the Bible- I can only imagine how I would feel if I were, say, an evangelical Christian reading that. Yeesh.

Don't dismiss my belief system as "primitive thinking." Sorry, but you don't get to make that call- and you certainly don't get to decide that because you don't believe it, it would be better to have some nebulous, randomly-created, world religion. Not that it really matters, since none of us are going to be in a position to enforce something like that, anyway, but statements like the above are exactly why I take issue with it. For one thing, being religious doesn't preclude being capable of logical, scientific thought processes. For another, one world religion that everyone is expected to believe is way, way to easy for some person (or people) with... less wholesome values to manipulate to their advantage. Thanks muchly, but you can keep your world religion. I know what I believe, and I don't think I really need the one-world government explaining it to me.

But really, this boils down to my one, big question: why, exactly, would we ever need some one-world, all-encompassing religion? I'm still not getting that one.

Sorry if it offends. A few months ago I would have maybe agreed with you but it was stupid logic I followed. Just because millions and billions of people practice something doesn't mean it is true. We all know that the Abrahamic religions contradict science in all ways imaginable. Ask a modern to Abrahamic and they will tell you that know matter what science and natural explanations there are they will always remain faithful. Sure, you can believe the sky is purple and that demons five people diseases but we live in a scientific world whether we like it or not. In a court of law for example someone who talks about their religious beliefs too much makes many people think your insane. These religions are like any other religions, created by each culture to understand the world around them and to give their lives meaning. But we have passed that way of thinking. Now we know there are ways to understand the world we live in that is through science. We can't have our global religion based on some superstitious cultural beliefs.

Let's be serious here. The Bible is a compilation of many books. The OT is actually the original Jewish Bible. The new testament was compiled by a bunch of Constantine's men. All these are books created by men. There is nothing more to it. You can't say these books are any more from God than the Illiad or the Odin mythological literature. We have to be real here. The Jews are a people like any other person. They have their own culural beliefs but that is really al they are. If God gave Moses the 10 Cs, then perhaps this world was created by Zeus as well. This quote will make you understand I hope;

“Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants.”

But One world religion is the most necessary because like I said before we can easily have a secular world federation. But I think it will do mankind a favor if we have one global institution that at least helps people in their quest for the truth.

[taijasi]

Hmmm ... but Silverbackman ... how can you just dismiss, with one fell swoop, all that has emerged in the religious arena of Human history, which now stands on firm ground before you - in whatever persona you wish to clothe it, demanding recognition?

Yes, it may seem silly or childish - much of it - and admittedly, for me, the anthropomorphisms still provide a considerable challenge. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! Science is not the new God, even if this is essentially the role it has fulfilled in the minds of the intellectual masses. One does not need to be a religious zealot, or the devotee type, or even really believe in organized religion ... in order to see that science is a piece of the puzzle, NOT the whole hog.

One of the newcomers to CR, soulatom - has been posting some things you might find interesting. And I find it highly worth considering, that many, many of science's greatest thinkers ... are also very spiritual people, whether in the religious sense, or perhaps in a less conventional sense - in many cases. Either way, those who really "have it together," as I see it, are the ones who have learned that their discipline, is one just like every other (the social sciences, religion & spirituality, the business world, the political arena, the performing & creative arts). If you don't think that each of these disciplines (an interesting word unto itself) offers us a slightly different but equally useful method of beholding the world we live in (and thereby, ultimate reality) ... think again.

No man is an island, and just as we are all interconnected and interrelated, so also are all areas of human endeavor linked!!! The threads that bind may be too subtle to see with the naked eye, but if you will think for a moment about the very existence of the "WEB" itself, as many still call it ... this may begin to become clear. Try to intuit that the web of existence - cannot be rent or torn. It can only be more or less illumined, and the gossamer-thin strands can sometimes stretch for what seems in our own, tiny lives ... to be a long, long way - from their common Heart.

But it is all nodes and nexuses - and all we need ask is how far till the next crossing ... not is there another intersection. Only illusion, and maya, paint the picture of separativeness. You need not be religious, you only need to study quantum physics ... and familiarize yourself with unified field theory, if you prefer the scientific approach.

And for what it's worth, all those creation myths, and flood myths, and parables and lessons that show up universally in the world's various religious teachings, are but strands in the web ... with many, many intersections, and a common pattern, right down to the track record of successes and failures. I'm rather cynical myself, actually ... but your thread on Common Government, Religion, and Language is probably one of the most important, imo, that I've ever seen on CR.

I botched a long post on esoteric world history ... after seeing the post you just made - and this one seems more on topic. I hope it makes some sense. I just don't see how "one world religion" could possibly exist, according to the terms you're suggesting, and with complete disregard for existing belief systems that millions upon millions in the world currently still embrace. I do believe in transformation ... in a gradual, very gradual and gentle - yet inevitable - coming together. And not a false unity, or one that simply respects but patronizes, or ignores the Rich Diversity of beliefs and traditions that obviously exists.

But if I can be shown that even as deep as I have been able to take my faith and relationship with the Divine ... there is yet, a deeper bedrock that "stands under" my current angle on things ... then maybe I will one day learn that that Rock is actually the one of which all the world is built. And thus I don't have to be a Buddhist, or a Christian, etc. ... to stand upon it. I just have to believe in the process of erecting the Divine Temple upon it, and be willing to accept cooperation as the crowing virtue - required of all who would help build. The rest - comes along the way ...

Peace,

andrew

[MagnetMan]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

That is the ultimate issue. And man has the ulitmate answer. Nature is just not strong enough to beat us, nor is any other force on the planet. Man decides. That is now the battle, in our court.

We hold the key to blow this planet to kingdom come, much quicker than any natural event...

...and yes I am playing devils' advocate. But it is a viable advocation...

I have already agreed with your premise - up to a point, but you have yet to say yes or nay to mine - and if nay - why?. You keep refering to man as a being that is above or beyond Nature - without acknowledging that we are just one of 3 billion of Her other incredible creations, not one of which can man ever duplicate from scratch. You assume that we rose to our high elevation by pulling ourselves up without help and without design and without purpose. Yes, man is a potentiaslly destructive beast with the power to pollute our entire solar sphere - but our power ends there. Man does not have the ultimate answer. If we did tell that to a score of our past ciivilizations that collapsed and disappeared over night. Why? Because of lack of more holistic foresight. And history is about to repeat itself again as we stand on the verge of no fuel for our industry and just an insane button push away from species extinction. And when we are dead and gone Nature will rise again, as She always has, and try to give birth to a better creature than we. Lets face it, we are just a tiny mite on the edge of one of a trillion galaxies. The only way we will ever surf the rest of the Universe is via metaphsyical translocation. That metaphsyical power is the Cosmic gift to every atomic association and it will remain latent in man and will continue to langiush while we strut around thumping our chests like gorillas. Play devil's advocate all you want - buit if you never take the effort to do some right brain exercises and disciover the depth iof your true power. your short span on earth will be wasted.

[Faustus]

Sorry if it offends. A few months ago I would have maybe agreed with you but it was stupid logic I followed. Just because millions and billions of people practice something doesn't mean it is true.

And just because some anonymous dude on the internet tells me he thinks I'm stupid for believing XYZ, because he's reached certain conclusions about it, it doesn't mean he's right. You don't even know what I believe, actually, which makes this discussion sort of moot.

I will say, though, that every single point you made regarding Abrahamic belief relies on the assumption that not only do all people practicing Abrahamic religions believe the same things (they don't), they all believe in and practice their religions in the same way (they don't). And my saying that doesn't mean that I'm an idiot who just "doesn't understand" what you're saying, it means that I don't buy into your logic.

I could say, "Here, let me explain what being Saved means, and then maybe you'll understand [and by "understand," I really mean abandon your beliefs and ideas and magically agree with me]," but that would be arrogant and condescending. You might find it hard to believe, but I'm just as capable of critical thought as you are, and I went through my own analysis of religion and belief to get to where I am that was, I suspect, no less thorough than your own. It would be nice if you could at least do me (and others) the courtesy of acknowledging that, rather than assuming that the only reason we aren't totally agreeing with everything you say is because we just don't "understand" (or that we're too stupid/illogical to "get it"). I understand what you're saying- I just don't agree. And as I said earlier, your cheerleading for a world religion assumes that a world religion would embody your beliefs (which you have no grounds for assuming at all). I suspect you'd be taking a different line on this if we were discussing making, say, evangelical Christianity the official world religion.

But One world religion is the most necessary because like I said before we can easily have a secular world federation.

Bolding mine. You just killed your own point- if it's secular, then religion would be completely irrelevent. You can't have a secular anything and then start making dictates regarding religion. At that point, it ceases to be secular (and is put in danger of becoming a theocracy).

[truthseeker]

A more secular government gives people the freedom to worship as they please without having to smash it in someone else's face. One Government, okay. One official language, sure. One official religion, hmmm. Unless that religion is human rights. But I say, if the United States was truly a Christian society, I would not be able to express my thoughts as freely as I do. I would be a heretic and maybe burned at the stake for having the gift of spiritual discernment. Should it be a government in which people can worship as they please, so be it. Frankly, I don't appreciate people knocking at my door telling me that I would be saved if I go to their church. If this kind of thing was banned, I wouldn't have much of a problem with it. But an environment in which people come at thier own will, say, such a place like CR - well if the concept such as the title of this thread would imply stopping people from coming together in like mind or stop the tv channels from broadcasting religious sermons on Sunday morning, then I'm against it. We should have the freedom to choose just like we should have the freedom to not have to be confronted with something we don't care to deal with.

[truthseeker]

By the way, isn't that called The New World Order? Isn't that idea already in effect?

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by Silverbackman

Sorry if it offends. A few months ago I would have maybe agreed with you but it was stupid logic I followed.
But One world religion is the most necessary because like I said before we can easily have a secular world federation. But I think it will do mankind a favor if we have one global institution that at least helps people in their quest for the truth.

silverback, you have been preaching this ever since i can remember. i disagree with all your philosophy on one world religion. i think you have an agenda to OUT certain religions that you dont like & you are not the first to make that known.

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by Faustus

And just because some anonymous dude on the internet tells me he thinks I'm stupid for believing XYZ, because he's reached certain conclusions about it, it doesn't mean he's right. You don't even know what I believe, actually, which makes this discussion sort of moot.




Bolding mine. You just killed your own point- if it's secular, then religion would be completely irrelevent. You can't have a secular anything and then start making dictates regarding religion. At that point, it ceases to be secular (and is put in danger of becoming a theocracy).

nice post, Faustus. all the way through.

[lunamoth]

Originally Posted by Faustus

Nah, it wasn't directed at you in particular, more the general idea that first, every religion will suddenly fall into line with some big, worldwide religion (which everyone here seems to assume will be monotheistic, incidentally, and I think there are a few polytheists who wouldn't really be down with that). I guess I just find it a little disturbing and arrogant- maybe because I personally have had people tell me in rather condescending fashion, "Oh, well, you think you're Jewish now, but don't worry, you'll see the truth and be Saved!" So maybe that's why it rubs the wrong way- I can't speak for anyone else, but my religion isn't some fad that I picked up from Cosmo and will change just because someone decides that everyone should be unified in religion. Just the thought makes me shudder a bit- a unified language and government I can see, but a world religion? No. Treading too close to the thought police there, I think.

I don't know all that much about Ba'hai, but what I have read about it has impressed me quite a bit. There was a Ba'hai group on my university campus, and I was always impressed by their distinct lack of proselytizing (unlike the Baptist Student Ministry, for instance, who stalked me for weeks because I made the mistake of attending a barbecue with a Baptist friend), inclusiveness and generally laid-back attitude toward differing opinions regarding religion. I can definitely see the appeal there.

thank you for the reply, faustus. i agree with your top paragraph there. a unified religion seems appealing because it would be one less reason for war and strife, and who knows, given enough time we may come to some kind of unity of belief, but any attempt to 'organize' such a religion would be a tragedy and disaster, IMO. to their great credit, baha'is do not see coercion in getting new believers at all as part of the process they also see as inevitable.

i think i see the same thing in the one-religion thing as you: it treads close to the thought police. you can be lots of things and still be part of your nation, you can be lots of things and still speak one language, but when it comes to religion it is your worldview and this affects you right down to your thoughts and actions. it is true even among the very progressive baha'i faith that if you do not accept certain doctrines then you are not a baha'i, or at least not qualified to be part of the baha'i community. no different from other religions.

lunamoth

[wil]

I think this thread needed to start with a poll...

-- yes I am willing to give up my belief system and language and use yours, (or whatever the popular vote decides)

-- yes I am willing for the rest of you to conform to my language, my belief system and abide by my societal laws, mores and convention.

-- no I don't think conformity in this nature will ever work



I think truth is, we are all under one G!d now and we just percieve things differently. As far as language and government goes...the US has one language...yet folks with heavy Maine accents and those from the bayou, and those from the inner city, and those from the upper midwest...have difficulties communicating despite they are all using 'english' (versions those in the UK would not recognize)

[Silverbackman]

Originally Posted by Faustus

Bolding mine. You just killed your own point- if it's secular, then religion would be completely irrelevent. You can't have a secular anything and then start making dictates regarding religion. At that point, it ceases to be secular (and is put in danger of becoming a theocracy).

Sorry for the typo. The statement you quoted I actually meant;

But One world religion is not the most necessary because like I said before we can easily have a secular world federation.

I'll try to reply to rest a bit later.

[Silverbackman]

Originally Posted by Bandit

silverback, you have been preaching this ever since i can remember. i disagree with all your philosophy on one world religion. i think you have an agenda to OUT certain religions that you dont like & you are not the first to make that known.

No I wasn't preaching this. If you remember correctly I preached that we should combine all religions into one religion that includes all religions. I clearly do not believe this anymore and chances are I never will ever again.

I advocate a religion based on science, rational thought, and whatever knowledge traditional religions supply.

I consider all religions as tools mankind has used to understand the world around them. But as we all know we live in an age where traditional religions are obsolete. Yes even your Bible has many fictions within them. Anyone who believes the Genesis creation story really needs to think over their conclusions. Nearly all civilizations created their own creation myth. The Genesis story has no particular special status over Zeus creating the world, the world being created from ant dung, ect. If you want to look at a real "creation story" check out science.

I really don't care if you or anyone else believes in Zeus, Yahweh, the cookie monster, a purple sky, ect. because some book said it. Any person not confined to blind faith will realize that science has more validity any religion period end of story.

[Silverbackman]

Nah, it wasn't directed at you in particular, more the general idea that first, every religion will suddenly fall into line with some big, worldwide religion (which everyone here seems to assume will be monotheistic, incidentally, and I think there are a few polytheists who wouldn't really be down with that). I guess I just find it a little disturbing and arrogant- maybe because I personally have had people tell me in rather condescending fashion, "Oh, well, you think you're Jewish now, but don't worry, you'll see the truth and be Saved!" So maybe that's why it rubs the wrong way- I can't speak for anyone else, but my religion isn't some fad that I picked up from Cosmo and will change just because someone decides that everyone should be unified in religion. Just the thought makes me shudder a bit- a unified language and government I can see, but a world religion? No. Treading too close to the thought police there, I think.

Remember though, under this global religion you can believe what you want and practice what you want. It is just that the official religion will support what we know.

In other words we know a universe exists. There is no evidence Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, Shiva, ect. exist. This new religion will be based on the only think we know about God: the universe (or multiverse). It will be based on science and rational thought.

The religion I am advocating is also far beyond monotheism or polytheism.

Trust me bud, I was once at the same stage you were. I have had just about anything. I started out as a devout Christian, later became nonreligious agnostic with no care for religion, then a Universalist who believes all religions lead to the same end, and finally what I am now. I don't mean to sound like a "religious supremacist", but I do believe my beliefs of the scientific God are superior to some random deity from a particular culture. How can some traditional beliefs be equal to science and rational thought?

[Kaldayen]

Originally Posted by Silverbackman

The religion I am advocating is also far beyond monotheism or polytheism.

Trust me bud, I was once at the same stage you were.

Evolution has been applied to many things since Darwin... Human thought is one of them. It was believed once that the societies' beliefs were evolving from magic to polytheistic religion to monotheistic religion to science.

Although you can most likely find people that still think there's a hierarchy in human beliefs, most anthropologists have abandonned that idea. It was based on a European anthropocentrism that viewed the other civilizations as lower than them...

Silverbackman, you can think what you want, but you won't succeed in making us think that believing in "something" (other than science) is stupid logic... You place your beliefs on top of a hierarchy and that shows little respect for your readers on a forum that's suppose to encourage respectful discussions...
___
Kal

[Awaiting_the_fifth]

Originally Posted by Silverbackman

Any person not confined to blind faith will realize that science has more validity any religion period end of story.

I would propose that faith in science is just as irrational as faith in any religion, and I will prove it to you using the "rational thought" in which you place so much stock.

Science is a process of observation and deduction.

Science cannot exist without observations, therefore science is really a blind faith in the physical world you see around you.

However, experience of dreams, severe mental disorders and hallucinations proves to us that what you see around you is not necessarily what is real.

This casts doubt over science's only source of information.

So where is this validity which you claim science holds?