@Ego--I would've thought that Augustine was your kind of Saint since he was a big promoter of the mind/body connection and treating your body with respect.
Ego wrote:Perhaps one of the most evil elements of religion is that it makes people reluctant to seek connections beyond those they've been taught to trust. It creates teams.
I won't argue that religion creates teams. Is it different than anything else though, like race, ethnicity, geography, nationality, political persuasion, paleo/vegan, spender/saver, etc.? We all self-identify with multiple teams. Is that inherently bad?
I'd argue that being a part of at least one 'team' is good for people. With so much talk of loneliness and unhappiness and the search for meaning, finding a group that provides a kind of structural happiness and meaning is a net positive for most people. How many people proclaim how happy they are about 'finding their tribe' when they join the forum? Belonging feels good.
Almost to a person, we refer to ourselves as EREs on the forum. We collectively eschew spendy, consumer-driven lifestyles and the people who live them. So should we be condemned, too, for forming our own 'team'? There are plenty of economists who would condemn our lifestyle as selfish and bad for the collective good. Are they right? Or are we free to judge our contribution differently and demand that our alternative view be respected? Neither opinion is based on magical thinking or anything 'irrational' so that shouldn't be a factor. Yet, we disagree about how our choices and lifestyles affect the common good.
If the argument is that religion makes for 'bad' teams while other ideologies make for good teams, then that goes back to the OP, so I have nothing to add to what I've already said.
Ego wrote:If you are a Christian (as opposed to an atheist) who believes Augustin was correct, then you are left with...
Created by God in his own image.
Created sick and commanded to be well on pain of eternal torture
Created wicked and commanded to be good on pain of eternal torture.
Pretty dismal stuff.
This is no place to discuss theology, but that interpretation is pretty cynical. Christians believe we're sinners, not sick or wicked. I interpret that to mean simply we all make mistakes and should remember that before judging others (John 8:7 "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." or Matthew 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.").
As far as threats of Hell as a means of keeping people in line, I admit that some people and religions have used that exact method on occasion or even as a rule (I do it with my kids
). There is no standard Christian interpretation of Heaven and Hell, and it's hard to distill the various interpretations into a single paragraph. I know the Catholic church teaches that no one on earth is in a position to judge whether someone is going to Hell, and it's considered a form of blasphemy to say such a thing. The way I tend to explain it is we (Christians) believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It's something most people hope is true, and for the religious, there's an eternal element where we trust that God will make it so even if it's no longer possible during our lifetimes. In that context, salvation gives people a chance to be forgiven for their mistakes and wipe the slate clean, so to speak, so that bad things don't happen to them.
It's funny how differently we (you and I) view the concepts of sin and Heaven and Hell. I take great comfort in the idea that we're all sinners and I'm not the only one screwing up all the time. And I've also thought to myself more than once during church services how incredibly tolerant and generous it is that every time we 'ask', we are unconditionally forgiven for our mistakes and afforded an opportunity to get right with God again (thereby avoiding Hell). If I raised my kids that way, they'd be spoiled brats.
To be clear, I'm not evangelizing. If you, or anyone, doesn't see any evidence for religious beliefs, I get that and respect it. I'm not a thumper. If, however, the issue is with what religious people believe, then I do post to explain when I think an interpretation/explanation is not necessarily true or, at least, not true of everyone.