Why do people care so much?

[TheTGB]

It's tough man, people think different things and deal with certain things differently. Personally, I live my life trying to help others and being the best human I can. As was said, we only live 75 years. I'm hoping I do some things with my life that will help people when I am long gone. I have no idea how I want to achieve that, but I still have over 50 years to figure that out.

[gatorboymike]

If your religious belief is rooted in Pascal's Wager or some derivative thereof (that is, believe in X because good stuff might happen to you if you do and bad stuff might happen to you if you don't), then you don't really have faith in anything. You really just expose yourself as so desperately gullible that you'll like down and purr like a kitty cat for whatever snake oil salesman can make the best-sounding promise to keep you out of **** as long as you shower him with enough money and obedience. Surely if the god you claim belief in really does exist, and if it values faith as much as you claim it does, it would be able to see through your facade and toss you into the flame pit with all the rest of us sinners. God would know that you don't have faith, you're just pretending to in order to cover your butt, and presumably it wouldn't like that. "Be gone, for ye never knew me," or some such nonsense.

But as to why people get so attached to religion in the first place, most religions (especially Christianity in all its forms and derivatives) offer you a 30-second ritual that you can bumble your way through without even meaning it, and then for the rest of your life, have an excuse to never do any thinking, never do any work, and treat everyone you see like garbage, while making a claim to absolute certainty of unknowable things and a pretention that you're better than everyone else. Since people are ignorant, lazy, selfish and belligerent by their very nature, they eat this stuff up. The last thing most of them want is to have to say they don't know everything, or to give any serious thought to their worldview. Religion, at its core, is nothing but a tool for making people proud of their worst qualities.

[Bonds_25]

AMEN to that....praise the lord and pass the basket!

people care about religion so much because they want to believe that life isn't only 75 years long on average...they pray that they will continue to live after they die...which is fine, until people start bickering about who's right and who's wrong, which religion is the absolute truth and which is a bunch of lies....death is beyond comprehension to the living, and they need some way to cope with it....to me, thats all religion is about...the afterlife

if religion helps somebody be a better person while they are here on earth, then im all for it....but when somebody starts talking about how im going to be beheaded and sent to the firelake for eternity for not believing what they believe, like they received the word from Jesus Christ himself, well then i just tune them out

life is short...be kind to other people...if i go through life being honest, without harming others, and being a good father to my children, then i'll be at peace with how i lived my life...if a god exists, and feels that isn't sufficient enough for me to escape the firelake, then that's not a god i care to worship anyway

That my friend was beautiful. Perfectly sums up how I feel.

[Star_Cards]

AMEN to that....praise the lord and pass the basket!

people care about religion so much because they want to believe that life isn't only 75 years long on average...they pray that they will continue to live after they die...which is fine, until people start bickering about who's right and who's wrong, which religion is the absolute truth and which is a bunch of lies....death is beyond comprehension to the living, and they need some way to cope with it....to me, thats all religion is about...the afterlife

if religion helps somebody be a better person while they are here on earth, then im all for it....but when somebody starts talking about how im going to be beheaded and sent to the firelake for eternity for not believing what they believe, like they received the word from Jesus Christ himself, well then i just tune them out

life is short...be kind to other people...if i go through life being honest, without harming others, and being a good father to my children, then i'll be at peace with how i lived my life...if a god exists, and feels that isn't sufficient enough for me to escape the firelake, then that's not a god i care to worship anyway

perfectly said.

[tyude2]

If your religious belief is rooted in Pascal's Wager or some derivative thereof (that is, believe in X because good stuff might happen to you if you do and bad stuff might happen to you if you don't), then you don't really have faith in anything. You really just expose yourself as so desperately gullible that you'll like down and purr like a kitty cat for whatever snake oil salesman can make the best-sounding promise to keep you out of **** as long as you shower him with enough money and obedience. Surely if the god you claim belief in really does exist, and if it values faith as much as you claim it does, it would be able to see through your facade and toss you into the flame pit with all the rest of us sinners. God would know that you don't have faith, you're just pretending to in order to cover your butt, and presumably it wouldn't like that. "Be gone, for ye never knew me," or some such nonsense.

But as to why people get so attached to religion in the first place, most religions (especially Christianity in all its forms and derivatives) offer you a 30-second ritual that you can bumble your way through without even meaning it, and then for the rest of your life, have an excuse to never do any thinking, never do any work, and treat everyone you see like garbage, while making a claim to absolute certainty of unknowable things and a pretention that you're better than everyone else. Since people are ignorant, lazy, selfish and belligerent by their very nature, they eat this stuff up. The last thing most of them want is to have to say they don't know everything, or to give any serious thought to their worldview. Religion, at its core, is nothing but a tool for making people proud of their worst qualities.

kind of an off topic question but how come whenever i see you post opt has edited your writing

[OnePimpTiger]

kind of an off topic question but how come whenever i see you post opt has edited your writing

Very good question...

[gatorboymike]

Apparently I'm forbidden from using the name of the place where Christians think non-Christians will go when they die here on a board where religion is discussed.

If you or OPT wants to suggest a different word to use, go ahead. Sheol? Gehenna? Hades? The lake of fire? The inferno? The underworld? "Down there"?

I think we can all understand that the use of that word as an expletive and the use of it as a proper name are not related. So by all means, tell me what I'm supposed to say instead.

[TheTGB]

I prefer "heck". :P No stars there.

[WilyWestbrook0]

People care because of the uncertainty of life. They speculate on these abstractions because life is a curiosity. If this life is all there is, and some have been born with more advantages than others, then they wonder if there's something afterward where our existences will be further explained, evaluated, etc.

Also, Piagetian psychological theory suggests humans become more conceptually oriented as they get older. As you get closer to your adult years, it's likely you will find yourself wondering more about ideas of all sorts, whether it regards religion, social justice, and so forth.

[tyude2]

thank you all for the answers and i think i get it now :)