Is organized religion bad?

Rosco..Jones said:
In addition religious teachings were written by persons whose own beliefs colored their interpretation of what was to be communicated. In Christianity for example, what teachings were to be included in the "official" version of the Bible and which were to be excluded was decided by a group of men. The men who made these decisions often had more that altruistic reasons for making the decisions they did. .
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There was no Bible at all before these decisions were made. That is, it's not as if some group set out to "edit" the Bible. The Bible came into being that way.

Prior to that, individual sects kept their own copies of scriptures, though many of them were (obviously) shared.

Please post any evidence you may have concerning "more than altruistic reasons for making the decisions"

As times passed mistranslations and alterations further distorted the original concepts of the teachings
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This may have been true in the past. However, with the recovery (and translations by modern, more well informed experts) of many early pieces of the ancient scripts, along with more and more examples of the ancient script being analyzed in other contexts (non-religious,) the situation is improving.

However, it is unlikely in the extreme that any original concepts were distorted by translation errors. The continued use of an old translation (like the King James Version) can cause misconceptions to arise itself. The English language in King James' day was not what it is now. I don't mean "thee" and "thou," it goes much further. An example would be "Thou shalt not kill."

Even in James' day, this was considered an admonition against murder, not merely killing. The use of the term "kill" had a more murderous undertone in those days. Yet a large majority of worshippers use the modern version of an old English word, utterly unaware they are wrong. Note that this error is not due to translation at all. It is more due to a belief that the KJV is "traditional," and the social inertia that goes along with such a mindset.
 
gonzogirl said:
Is organized religion bad?

I was thinking about organized religion vs spirituality...A lot of folks out there are spiritual and a whole lot of people are part of organized religion..
I personally do not like organized religion as I think it a method of control that is abused by mortal man. I like being spiritual because I am free to worship GOD the way I see GOD. Anyway..What do all of you think out there? Is organized religion BAD?:confused:.....
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Lets see, if both groups are of the Muslim faith and this is what they do to each other, then what would they do to a Christian?
 
For Earthmasque... I will focus on Christianity because that is what I am most familiar with. When decisions were made as to which books were to be contained in the Bible, choices were made that emphasized the the understanding in ways that would strengthen the control by the Church and limit the ideas that the Church did not want promoted. The role of women was downplayed, along with concepts of the spiritual aspects of nature and the plant/animal kingdoms. They wanted to exclude any concepts deemed to be "Pagan" in their views. This was done to eliminate any spiritual competition and strengthen their power and control. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic church did include idols, rituals and erected grandiose buildings to glorify God. This seems to me to be in conflict with what Christ was promoting.

There are the "Lost Books of the Bible" that include concepts rejected by the Church because they did not agree with the overall game plan. Also, for reasons I will not elaborate on here, the book of Mathew may be fraudulent and written quite some time after Christs death. In any case it was men who decided what was to be called the truth to be followed, or falsehoods to be ignored. Each person making these decisions had their own set of beliefs, understandings and reasons for how they voted. They were not individually inspired by the divine in the manner which the "official" Bible was put together.

Churches today do not all teach the same thing. The minister, preacher (whatever) focuses on certain aspects of the Bible that they feel most important. Their teachings again differ due to personal interpretations and beliefs. Today, as well as through the history of the Church, we often see that the clergy is not always as Holy as we would hope. Their power and influence is sometimes used for personal reasons. Sexual predation, lavish lifestyles and other actions are not as rare as one would expect.

The Church teaches that we are ALL sinful and God is separate/apart from us. These beliefs color our views of how reality works and limits us in many ways. The same can be said of Science, that teaches us that reality is just the result of random chance and physical processes. Whatever our beliefs, they are what determine how we view the world and our place in it. We do have latent abilities that are not utilized, simply because we do not bring them into our belief system as even being a possibility. You can't find the answers, if you are not capable of asking the right questions.

I do believe that Organized Religion IS Bad, in that it places constraints on followers learning to use what their "God Given" abilities are. We all do create our own realities. Learning how to do this effectively requires first changing our beliefs. Remember, facts are only those things that we believe to be true. Beliefs change constantly as we experience and learn new things. We exist in a multidimensional universe and are multidimensional beings. Yet, the only part of ourselves that we accept as being "real" is the physical world we experience. There is more to reality than just the physical, but each organized religion gives its own limited perspective. This had to utilized concepts that were acceptable to the people of that time and society. Times are changing and beliefs about how reality works are too.
 
Rosco..Jones said:
For Earthmasque... I will focus on Christianity because that is what I am most familiar with. When decisions were made as to which books were to be contained in the Bible, choices were made that emphasized the the understanding in ways that would strengthen the control by the Church and limit the ideas that the Church did not want promoted. The role of women was downplayed, along with concepts of the spiritual aspects of nature and the plant/animal kingdoms. They wanted to exclude any concepts deemed to be "Pagan" in their views. This was done to eliminate any spiritual competition and strengthen their power and control. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic church did include idols, rituals and erected grandiose buildings to glorify God. This seems to me to be in conflict with what Christ was promoting.
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Hardly. All of the above are perfectly legitimate concerns for a cult trying to encompass all their beliefs in one book.

Rosco..Jones said:
Also, for reasons I will not elaborate on here, the book of Mathew may be fraudulent and written quite some time after Christs death.
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True of every book in the New Testament.

Rosco..Jones said:
In any case it was men who decided what was to be called the truth to be followed, or falsehoods to be ignored. Each person making these decisions had their own set of beliefs, understandings and reasons for how they voted. They were not individually inspired by the divine in the manner which the "official" Bible was put together[/URL]
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Again, perfectly legitimate. Many books under consideration had no providence - some had been written within a hundred years of the time of the Council of Nicea.

Rosco..Jones said:
Churches today do not all teach the same thingThe minister, preacher (whatever) focuses on certain aspects of the Bible that they feel most important. Their teachings again differ due to personal interpretations and beliefs. Today, as well as through the history of the Church, we often see that the clergy is not always as Holy as we would hope. Their power and influence is sometimes used for personal reasons. Sexual predation, lavish lifestyles and other actions are not as rare as one would expect.
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There are bad people, yes.

Rosco..Jones said:
The Church teaches that we are ALL sinful and God is separate/apart from us. These beliefs color our views of how reality works and limits us in many ways. The same can be said of Science, that teaches us that reality is just the result of random chance and physical processes. Whatever our beliefs, they are what determine how we view the world and our place in it. We do have latent abilities that are not utilized, simply because we do not bring them into our belief system as even being a possibility. You can't find the answers, if you are not capable of asking the right questions.
I do believe that Organized Religion IS Bad, in that it places constraints on followers learning to use what their "God Given" abilities are. We all do create our own realities. Learning how to do this effectively requires first changing our beliefs. Remember, facts are only those things that we believe to be true. Beliefs change constantly as we experience and learn new things. We exist in a multidimensional universe and are multidimensional beings. Yet, the only part of ourselves that we accept as being "real" is the physical world we experience. There is more to reality than just the physical, but each organized religion gives its own limited perspective. This had to utilized concepts that were acceptable to the people of that time and society. Times are changing and beliefs about how reality works are too.
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Organized religion is both good and bad. Like pretty much everything else.

An example:

The Good: If not for Nicea, the texts in question would have continued undergoing revision after revision by localized cults, which was what had happened and was partially the impetus for Nicea in the first place.

The Bad: Because these texts are frozen in time now, all that you said about constraints the Bible places on the individual are true. Prior to Nicea, a group could decide what to believe, form their own church and write up a few of their own "sacred texts."
 

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