A conscience?
Us religious folks call that inner self the conscience — … cyberscribe
Just because one is religious or belongs to a church does not mean one has a conscious or listens to it…..
Reminders of religious sins:
pedophile priests
forced conversions (death and enslavement to those who don’t covert)
seductions by those in power
forced marriage
protection of pedophiles and other criminals
protection of child and spousal abuse
perpetuation of slavery
empire building
history is ripe with examples. I could go on and on and on.
What things have people done and convinced themselves were right because they thought it was God’s will? or Mohammed’s or whomever?
Favorite line from a song:
They prayed to their stone gods and their stone gods did not make a sound
…..All that was left were some stones that a workman found. (Sting)
However, that being said, it doesn’t take being religious to do evil. Lots of evil has been done in the name of “non-religion”
Lenin and Hitler, for example…..
Human beings have an innate pattern maker (or pattern interpreter?) in their brain. That means we driven to make patterns out of all of our sensory input… Perhaps, that is where religion comes from–the drive to make sense out of the universe.
Anita
Oh.. we all have a conscious… who listens to theirs is another story…
And your examples are exactly what you called them.. sins….not necessarily religious folks, but ones who use religion for their own purpose…
So if you define religion as “making sense of patterns”, then how do you define science?
I need to go watch a version of “Miracles” to counteract your gloominess… thank heavens there are lots of uplifting shows on this time of the year… 😉
But then I guess I’m Pollyanna to you…. 😉
We saw a show the other night called, The Island. There was a great quote that made Doug and I both laugh and think that if we were all watching together we could have a great conversation.
After finding out about the outside world, a clone asks a human living in the real world: Who is God?
He answers: You know when you close your eyes and really wish hard for something. God is the guy who ignores you.
We thought that was cute whether you are a believer or not.