Reply #96: The "reasons beyond earth" strikes as wrong-headed to me as well [View All]

[Meshuga]

If the reasons are "beyond earth" then religion loses its purpose to me. And I am saying that as someone who follows a religion. My religion is merely a template that I use as a guide to being the person I want to be, not for otherworldly reasons, but to enrich my obituary when it is my time. I understand that it may not be the best template and it is not an universal prescription but it is something I use for myself because I feel that it helps me when I follow its value system. And I also use it to give meaning in a sense of action, community, tradition, study, life-cycle events, etc.

Obviously one can have meaning and purpose in their own lives without faith or a religion. The point of living and dying is what we make of it and we all have our own understanding no matter the belief or lack of belief.

I can see usage of belief as beneficial to some in a sense of support. Some people may have the need for dialog and a "sholder to cry on" (even a virtual one) in times of need, for example. So I see no harm in that usage of faith as long as this defense mechanism gets people over the hump. But when belief turns to otherworldly reasons that's when things get hairy.

I hope Donovan Campbell understands that other people have their own ways of finding their own meaning and that his model of the world is not universal. I also think his model is a bad one and I would not subscribe to it. For example, I see "dying for good reason" as perhaps dying to protect your children in a harmful situation to enable them to survive but only when there is no way out of it. However, dying or living for supernatural and otherworldly reasons, in my opinion, is a very dangerous way of thinking for obvious reasons.

But that's just my two cents.