rebecca sosa

    (My reply to you saying Muslim friends have told you Allah means God)

    That's true, but not really relevant. Believing in God isn't the problem, the problem is organized religion wanting to keep people ignorant, wanting them to simply accept what they are taught without question and do as they are told. So people are taught biased morality, and think it is perfectly ok to kill people that they have been taught God does not approve of, such as homosexuals and people who dare to think for themselves and ask too many questions. And these Muslims likely had their path chosen for them while they were still the unborn child carried by their mother. What a precious Muslim, Jewish, Christian child he/she will be. And perhaps it was not imposed upon them by their parents, but they had an affinity to it because of their heritage or environment.

    Religion is very powerful, and it is enforced by man, not god. It is a human hierarchy of credibility and influence, not a divine hierarchy. Give man power and he will abuse it. He will skew what is written however he pleases, and some of the followers will do as they are told without question, while others know it is corrupt and simply play the part of good Muslim or Christian so they will not be killed, imprisoned, shunned, or otherwise punished for having a different opinion. There will be those who happily take part in the violence or other persecution of those that God disapproves of, those that don't take part but approve, and those that disapprove but won't say so for fear of disciplining or banishment.

    When you have belonged to a religion your whole life, your place decided for you before you're even born, and you are taught that this way is the only way and that to believe otherwise is evil and intolerable, many people are simply trapped, and put on the facade of a typical member of the community. They are kept ignorant. They know nothing else. Many of them fear leaving all they know behind to walk their own path, facing the world alone, facing punishment from someone who discovers their intentions. Of course it isn't as severe as this everywhere, but it does exist.

    People are taught not to research the history of their religion, to not dare to examine how other people and religions perceive their own religion. Indoctrinating children into religion is so shameful. We should be taught to be open minded, taught of the beliefs of all relevant religions, their histories, their similarities and differences, what they have done in the past and what they do in the present, taught to use all the resources available to us to conceive educated opinions, knowing that these opinions are not necessarily true and may change. Taught to acknowledge the good and the bad. To be objective and find our own way, instead of having only one teaching pounded into our susceptible young minds, by men who are qualified only because people believe they are and will not challenge them. Of course parents don't mean their children harm, they are doing as was done to them, doing what they think is right. "Look both ways before you cross the street! And pray before you go to bed!" They have good intentions, but they force children to look at the world through the lens of some religion while they're still developing and mostly will not question what they are taught.

    Check out a documentary called "Jesus Camp" that shows some religious indoctrination in the States. Just google "watch Jesus Camp documentary" and you'll see a few sites where you can watch it.

    Made me tear up a few times. My advice would be to consider it objectively and come to your own conclusions, but I know it's hard for a Christian (for example) to simply not think as a Christian, to filter it through their belief system instead of simply as a human being.

    Another one I'd recommend is called "All God's Children". If you google "All God's Children documentary", look on the results page for a website called "culture unplugged", you can watch it there, if you want to. It's about adults discussing how they were abused at a religious boarding school as children, still recovering from the trauma, thinking at the time that everything done to them was what God wanted and they somehow deserved it.

    And like I said earlier in this thread, both "scientism" and organized religion can be presumptuous and closed minded, more interested in believing want they want to (or have been taught to) believe and dismissing everything else, instead of considering everything and coming to their own educated opinion, extracting value and observing corruption or arrogance from a neutral perspective.

    spirituality ≠ organized religion, but of course there is value to be extracted from religious teachings and the opinions of philosophers, people who spent many years pondering what may have recently come to our attention, and may help us reach our own opinions in our journey as we consider many voices of the past and present.