Astarion's Half Brother's Topics (523)

Be cause medieval, or Renaissance era religions, especially when they hold the reins of government, were brutal in controlling the aristocracy ...

Also religious men back then who were in power were tight asses and assholes overall

i mean no one really realises what it means, but if you look at it historically, for example christians were like absolute barbarians....they hid under those nice religious words and gods name, but went around foreign nations, killed and overtook them, forcefully thought them the language and religion and erased those cultures and traditions of theirs....especially like africa, where many clans have been erased and not recorded in history sometimes, so many languages were lost and people have no idea where they came from....they went around burning people for not being religious enough, or just because they pissed off those holy knights...who knows what those dudes did on their never ending trips through the world being all high on authority and with no communication like today.....they plundered and raped and slaughtered like no tomorrow in the name of god....there was a tiem for centuries, where women were seen as the eye of satan...so whenever a good christian male was just aroused by a women, it was seen as if satan possessed that women and was trying to turn him from the right path, so the husband had to hit satan out of her and probably then did her half dead beat body to get it out of himself or what....it is so insane what religion did for so long.....and this is just christianity, which was the most popular for a loooong time and rained over most of the world for the most time....other religions in the other areas had their shits, too...or let me correct: other religions were abused and manipulated by HUMANS to fuck up the world in a way in suited their greed....and they still do it...

That's why I'm so wary of religion
Sure, it can 'guide' people to lead moral lives
But it's also a breeding ground for 'do not question the authority of God!' which is used as an excuse to allow all sorts of horrific thungs and insert authority over people.
Have you noticed that in every progressive thing, the church is always what's digging it's heels and refusing to budge until the last minute?
So yeah. Religion is like a knife. Humans use far to often to stab and scar.s

clergy those days was populated by nobility, the second, third and so on children of noble families were forced into clergy, a clergy that could not have children so that they could not claim the title and moneys they were born into and it could go all to the first born male. So to make it up to them they were elevated to the higher ruling classes of the clergy(often through the family making hefty donations), making it a de-facto second monarchy. That's why the Church used to be such a powerful entity.

no. you should not be wary of the religion itself. but the people....i grew up in a muslim household and with people being muslim around me naturally as it was our main community apart from my german one....so over time, i got a really weird stance to the religion and people..things did not add up to me..especially the many debates....then i had a phase where i thought it to myself...praying and i prayed...it thought me a lot about why we pray....especially years later when i started doing yoga....anyway...people talk crap....most people are easy to see through...you just ask them "why?"....whenever they preach something and you ask for a reason as to why one has to follow that, and if their answer is "because god says so/the religious text says so" you know you can mentally throw them away...cause they have no clue about the religion and god...they are just like birds reciting something they heard and thinking it is their natural voice or what...for example, you cannot understand the koran and the islam, if you do not know the history before it was introduced first....really understand what was life like back than, who was the prophet and why was the kuran written like it was....do you think the texts would be the same, if god were to send another prophet? no....as if god , who is said to be almighty, is behind our development in language and all....anyway....islam makes a lot of sense if you know the history and then interpretate it to the present....comparing both realities etc. many other religions i am sure are the same...but people like to be dramatic and imagine some kinda wow story and whatnots so they exaggerate and dramatise and force stuff...at the end of the day you have to ask: would god, who created all and everything unconditionally and gave it all free will, really want this for us? stuff like inequality, exploitation, religious murder, discrimination, sexism, in general any form of unneccesseray suffering we humans create ourselves....and we humans drag other species in as well (animals we hold as livestock in the most horrific ways imaginable all over the world, zoos, aquariums, burning down forrests and extinction of wildlife)

You're right. I'm letting my past history with religion cloud my judgement. Just as there's no sense in damning a knife for being a knife, since it's a tool and can be used in any way, it's the wielders that I should handle with care and a grain of salt.
My taken on God is that if a God existed, how could we, mere mortals and humans, even begin to grasp at such a mighty existence? Wouldn't it be beyond our understanding? So to me people who flaunt that they know God so well are immediately discredible. There's merit in realising one's own limits.
There's no way to prove God doesn't exist and there's no way to prove God does
Even if God does exist, the first step to proving something is to understand it's characteristics and features, but by leu of character, how could we understand such a powerful being? It's like ants trying to understand human culture, politics and nature.
And like you said, all old religious texts have gone through multiple translations and language and culture and attitudes have changed over time. So what may have held before, doesn't hold now. Yet it's treated as sacred and timeless.
It's no more sacred than Charles Dickens stories in teaching us morality and showing cultural commentary.
It would be an interesting read, like reading poetry to interpret and examine and understand things from a fresh perspective and expand your view of the world, as is the benefit of reading much literature, but beyond that I wouldn't hold it holy and it feels plain sense not to.

Btw, my comment on 'discredible', it's only now that I realise I wrote it far more accusatory than I should've or intended. I wasn't targeting you with it, since my understanding is that what you meant was that, according to other's standards of God is like, why would such a God endorse horrific acts?
My point still stands even when painting a benevolent God. How are we so sure God is benevolent? How are ants sure humans are benevolent?

the conequence of free will is that we bear full responsibility for whatever happen in the mortal world....so the reason there is so much suffering, is because of us not because of god...cause and effect are not always really obious...especially to people who have no access to unlimited information like us now....they only have god and fate as explanations to kind of put their heads in order....we always strive to organise things in our minds, so that is why people are so quick to do that when they have. nothing else to blame for....because thes do not understand all the background work behind their suffering....

he's just a growing boi. he needs some love so he's not grumpy

Saw the raws, lightsabers will be waving, just wait for the few side stories dear.(▰˘◡˘▰)