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Getting Religion

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Nontheists understand that religion is wrong. We discuss religions, rant about them, and fight them. Do we understand them? The goal of here is to learn about religions, how they developed, what they beleive, what makes them tick.

Location: Global
Members: 47
Latest Activity: Jan 6

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"Getting Religion" means understanding religions.

Here on Atheist Nexus, there is no shortage of declarations about religion - how religions are harmful, how religious people are deluded, how their leaders manipulate the religious, and how freedom from religions benefits us as individuals, and would benefit humanity.

File:DaodeTianzun.jpg

Religions are like science fiction stories, full of amazing characters, bizarre life forms, psychopathic personalities, drama, passion, war, peace, kindness and cruelty.

Religions are like a life form. They start small, grow, evolve, mature, become senescent. Most religions have died. New ones are born regularly. Like disease, they infect and spread, reproducing in susceptible populations. Religions develop and flourish in a bio-psycho-social world., changing their host, and their host changing the religion.
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We need to understand religions. They are also amazingly interesting. The purpose of this group is to examine religions, what they beleive, their history, their stories, their people, their psychological and social contexts, and how they evolve.

While we can speculate about why homo sapiens creates religions, the main goal is to learn more about the histories and beleif systems of religions, what they have in common, and how they differ.

Discussion Forum

Where, and what, is Hell?

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Sentient Biped Jan 6. 36 Replies 0 Likes

I became interested in the topic when reading that some fundamentalist christian ministers proposed that Christopher Hitchens, now that he has died, has become a believer due to his burning in hell.…Continue

Tags: hell

The Amazing Story of Zoroastrianism

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Sentient Biped Dec 31, 2011. 3 Replies 1 Like

As a religion, and a culture, Zoroastrianism has an almost 3,000 year contiguous history. It was the religion of prehistoric Persians, then of 3 sequential Persian empires - Among the greatest…Continue

How do we construct a morality without God?

Started by Claudia M. Mazzucco. Last reply by George Jul 4, 2011. 4 Replies 0 Likes

Let us talk about morality. Inscribed over the gate of the Delphic oracle was the command which Socrates emphasized with his entire personality: “Know yourself.” And over the gate of Judaism was…Continue

Tags: philosophy, Bible, the, Morality

A call to arms! Atheists around the world must unite against tyranny.

Started by Younas Chowdhry. Last reply by Younas Chowdhry May 20, 2010. 2 Replies 0 Likes

Dear All,I am writing to you from Pakistan. I wish to bring to your attention the fact that Muslims across the world are launching protests against the right to free speech and having social…Continue

14 years in the life of a Maya priest

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Jo Jerome Apr 18, 2010. 3 Replies 0 Likes

discovery.com This is interesting, as a religion that had no contact with evolving religions in…Continue

Tags: scapegoat, sacrificial sheep, Maya, religion, human sacarifice

The World's oldest continuous government, a religious monarchy

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Jo Jerome Apr 18, 2010. 5 Replies 0 Likes

From University of Wyoming This refers, of course, to the Roman Catholic Church. As the article notes, the Church has survived wars,…Continue

Tags: History of Religion, catholic

An Atheist with Gandhi

Started by JayBarti. Last reply by Sentient Biped Apr 16, 2010. 1 Reply 0 Likes

I stumbled upon this while perusing the Positive Atheism Site.An Atheist With Gandhi…Continue

Tags: Shri Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, Gora, Gandhi

New Book: "First English Bible Fueled First Fundamentalists"

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Sentient Biped Mar 10, 2010. 7 Replies 0 Likes

livescience.com "The translation of the Bible into English marked the birth of religious fundamentalism in medieval…Continue

Tags: literacy, fundamentalism

Zoroastrianism

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by Jo Jerome Mar 9, 2010. 1 Reply 0 Likes

Zoroastrianism is considered the forerunner of monotheistic religion. The religion began in what is now Iran. The number of Zoroastrians currently living is small, in communities in India,…Continue

Tags: Zoroastrianism

A new religion every month.

Started by Sentient Biped. Last reply by D.O.S Mar 8, 2010. 1 Reply 0 Likes

John Hummel interviewed at 52 centers of worship, in his weblog "52 weeks, 52 religions". I can't do that, but in interest of keeping the momentum, have…Continue

Tags: Religions, Temples

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Comment by Sentient Biped on December 31, 2011 at 11:06am: Steph, thank you SO MUCH! This is something I wanted to get off the ground for a long time.

Comment by Steph S. on December 31, 2011 at 12:54am: Learning much here - thanks!

Comment by Sentient Biped on December 25, 2011 at 12:00pm: For anyone interested, this thread here is now embarking on a world tour of hell. Exploring the versions of hell as seen in various religions.

Have fun. The weather forecast in most hells is for scorching heat, bring a big cold thermos with lots of ice tea.

Comment by Steph S. on September 13, 2011 at 5:54am: Scientology would be an interesting one to learn about.

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 12, 2011 at 10:58pm: Steph,

This group has languished, even though I would love to see more discussion to understand religion. Is there a religion that you would like to learn more about?

Comment by Steph S. on September 11, 2011 at 1:16pm: Greetings everyone!

Comment by Vangelis Stamatopoulos on October 24, 2010 at 12:55am: Atheism and religion is an interesting comparison which I explore in my blog post from the point of view of a Buddhist. I am particularly concerned that the atheist agenda has been hijacked in Australia to be specifically anti-religious rather than a-theist. You can read more here.

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 13, 2010 at 10:12pm: Diana, thank you for linking to your blog post. I would not mind at all if you double posted that to here as well. Blog posts usually tend to get buried and forgotten, while discussion group posts and forum posts seem to last longer.

Jo, that's a great description for a type of bias. I bet there's a latin name for it but I don't know it. For us to be true skeptics, we always have to watch for our sources of bias, which it sound like you are doing very well.

Comment by Jo Jerome on September 12, 2010 at 5:46pm: Daniel - Also, the hotter, bigger, more emotional the topic (like religion), the harder it is for any of us to be bias. I see a FB post about the latest stupid thing Sarah Palin said and I too am instantly inclined to believe it. But, I try and force myself to follow the story, source it, verify it through a couple of independent sources, and if I can't, I won't repeat it and will treat it with skepticism.

Similarly, the view on religion that a book is promoting, even if it's the most conventional wisdom out there; I look not just to the message but how that message is being delivered. If someone is using bullying tactics, appeal to authority, and other red flags often used by snake oil salesmen, I don't care if you're trying to convince me that a baseball is spherical; your tactics alone are an alarm that something might not be right here.

Plus, as a budding anthropologist, I am a huge fan of scientific theories with open doors and an even bigger fan of peeking behind the lesser-used doors to see if we haven't missed something.

Comment by Diana Agorio on September 12, 2010 at 2:32pm: My recent blog post is perfect for this group; but, I didn't see an easy way to link it. It describes Noah's flood as a star story: http://www.atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/travel-the-stars-with-noah