reading this thread shaved off 4.3 hope points :/
^ the scientific method is not the center of science, it is not the foundation of science. it is a particular general method of testing ideas/hypotheses/guesses and predictions about nature. there are other ways besides the scientific method to come up with theories which are just as useful. and some reject the scientific method, either philosophically (reality is a fuzzy concept...), or indirectly by rejecting some idea that was arrived at through simple observation and extrapolation (but they don't understand the extrapolation, eg anti evolutionists...)
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anyway.. why do i believe that you should not place your entire faith in one (admittedly intricate and complex) church system of belief?
well first of all, all of the great great thinkers (from socrates to jesus to good ole tim leary) had, as their primary gift to humanity, the following idea: THINK FOR YOURSELF.
tangental: you asked how the church is exploitative; well, besides accumulating and using political power via numbers and wealth, besides being in bed doing anal with all the big governments including hitler's, besides turning people against one another by proclaiming to be the one and only possible truth which requires violence so that all may have the truth (funny look:/), besides going hand in hand with other emotional aspects of society like patriotism (which is very destructive...), the MAIN thing that the church has as it's agenda is it acts as a "block" to societal/individual progress:
by being the "one and only truth", when people question the church, or if someone is a "deviant" personality or has a dangerous culture, they could be burned, tortured, persecuted by fellow citizens, by the church, by the government. also, new ideas are contrary to the church. the history of the church is a history of GRUDGING progress: the church ***has*** to evolve a little bit, or else it will simply die. that sort of thing is magic, it can't exist. that sort of thing is the will of god, or satan. the earth is the center of the universe. etc. many revolutionary ideas were directly counter to the church, the church being the biggest block to societal progress society has ever faced... so yes, as you say, the church evolves... but only because it HAS to in order to retain any followers, because every few new ideas that come along chisel away a little bit of the church's structure. and the reason why is obvious... the church is not natural, it does not sync with reality, for a variety of reasons. the history of the church is a history of defeat after defeat, where almost every evolution of the church is a defeat where the ideas of the church were finally found to be absolutely silly
organized religion, yes its ideas are very intricate and complex. that doesn't mean it's right, in ANY sense, though. a psychotic will have very intricate and complex perspectives, that doesn't mean he's right; it just means he's had a lot of time to come up with a very large ideological/ontological framework
yes thinkers in the church build off of previous thinkers. but relativism DOES offer some very important insights. equally complex and equally intricate systems evolved with an equal or greater number of thinkers in many other parts of the world. catholicism, perhaps because of its insistence that it is the one and only truth, and its efficiency at "erasing" nonbelievers (when it had this power) and inducing fear into people, is the largest religious group, granted (though it won't be that way for long, the way the numbers are going). but many other religions are more decentralized, aka, they have many more thinkers working on and evolving their ontological picture, and usually for a much greater period of time; so if your idea is that "the church is good to follow because many people have been building on many ideas for a long time", well then you should switch to the oldest church with the most decentralized (aka least-central/patriarchal-church-like) religion
and yes, i apply the same relativism to patriotism: patriotism/nationalism is a way of saying "my country is better than yours, because *I* was born here. likewise, religion is a way of saying "my belief system is better than yours, just because. and because i was born here" because, in order for religion to exist in the mind's of so many people so intensely, it is engrained, forcefully, with great intensity, all through-out childhood for many people. (and, yes, we "feel" god. that doesn't mean he exists, it means the mind is a very powerful thing. it has to be, capable of creating things like "redness" and "happiness" and such)
in particular, there are SO many parts of the belief system of the patriarchal church that are simply ridiculous. science, and the scientific method, basically, turning observations of the real world into ideas with relatively high certainty, still is directly counter to the patriarchy. sexual health is important, and religion's interference with this is so great, religion directly creates psychological disease. in addition, its inherent block to societal progress creates towns/societies where the church still has enough political power (at least within its town) to, eg, excommunicate, cause the entire population of the town to ignore an individual and throw him out, to ruin lives. its insistence that it is the only right way conflicts with many people's natural, innate sexualities, feelings, emotions, and behaviors and ideas
and what makes the catholic church so much greater than, say, the islamic church, or bhuddism? the catholic church is newer, it is more centralized and has less people progressing the ideas, so according to your ideas you should not be a catholic; especially what you said about being kind to others, hope, etc; you are a sheep, like most catholics. then again, i suppose you probably see that as a good thing, being christian 8)
jesus was against the church. he warned against starting churches in his name, because he knew of the consequences. jesus, and like i said all the other great thinkers, know that divinity lies within. we construct our realities, and it is up to us to find our spiritual aspects of our realities. jesus was an amazing person, and his ideas are also, ironically, directly COUNTER to pretty much all of church doctrine
why reject organized religion? well, A) it is run by a group of people that think they know better than everyone else, B) it relies on fear to carry it through, C) it is self-contradictory in its spiritual texts and in its very existence, D) it is a political body which causes conflict, E) it does not recognize the validity of ANY other ideas or forms of art or sexualities or cultures, F) society is much better off progressing rather than resisting progress and having this resistance cost us much in psychological health, G) i could go on...
why think for yourself? because coming up with a particular ontological worldview/spirituality is what the brain is, basically, "designed" to do. and we all have a brain. as a planet, society is becoming ever more connected via information and physically; we are progressing. we have vast amounts of data and interpretations of that data available literally at our fingertips, as well as other media sources of all sorts of ideas/info.
so, to sum my whole post, we think for ourselves, rather than rely on the top thinkers of a particular church, because it is more natural for us to do so. though it does give us a headache, and take 20 minutes out of our day to type up a post like this one
seriously though, would you even know what zoroastrianism is...?
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")