Is Religion A Test?

[mcdaddy]

Was just making my morning coffee and I had a thought....what if there IS some kind of deistic creator god, who is *actually* all-loving, that uses religion as a test to see which ones of us are caring, intelligent, and thoughtful enough to LEAVE it? One thing I've noticed is how it seems ex-C's seem so much more AUTHENTICALLY compassionate than their religionist counterparts. Maybe the test is to see which ones of us discard the hateful, unintelligent thought-spam in favor of a more loving, enlightened path, even under the threat of hellfire?

 

That would be kind of cool in a way.

 

Edit: I realize the need to make this much more nuanced but I think most of you get where I'm coming from.

[Overcame Faith]

Interesting thought. But to me it would not be a loving deity who would try to fool people into thinking there was eternal punishment as some kind of test. That would be a perverted god, almost as bad as a deity who actually invented a hell (though not quite so bad).

[mcdaddy]

Hence the "nuanced" part. There are tons of qualifications I could add to it but didn't for sake of brevity.

[freeasabird]

Sounds kind of like Dusty's Wager.

 

 

[mcdaddy]

Wow! I swear I'd never seen that before. But yeah, that's pretty much it.

[freeasabird]

Wow! I swear I'd never seen that before. But yeah, that's pretty much it.

 

I love Dustys wager. I keep toying with Putting the link to the video in my facebook religion. Haven't gotten the guts yet though.

[sjessen]

This was one of the gazillion thoughts that raced through my mind when I was de-converting. I came to the same conclusion as Overcoming Faith, pretty twisted way of doing things.

[mwc]

Why are gods, or the god, automatically all-loving these days? (Okay, it's not a new idea)

 

An indifferent god makes more sense if we assume a massive scale. I don't care about each atom in my body (worse probably) and that's about the scale we're talking about if some god can encompass the universe. The planet as a whole simply does not register and, even if it did, would be a foreign object to a god just as atoms are foreign to us. We don't relate to them. We don't have "relationships" with them or "care" about their day beyond some scientific curiosity.

 

To imagine that any creature would create anything on this scale then worry about something akin to a specific atom (or electrons) is just unrealistic. Maybe a fun story at best.

 

mwc

[Mike D]

The problem with a religion "test" is that we're tested in other ways outside of religion all the time.

 

We might be compassionate enough to leave religion, but what would happen if we were put in a life or death "survivalist" situation where we had to choose between saving ourselves and/or our family, or throwing our fellow humans under the bus? In a situation like that, I may not look so compassionate.

 

Personally if push came to shove and it's between me and someone else - they are going down. Nothing personal, it's only business.....

[mcdaddy]

You're programmed that way. Blame natural selection!

[SoftIce]

Interesting idea. Inverse of the usual 'test' proposition about religion.

 

I think religion probably evolved because in the past, people needed and wanted explanations for things we can explain now (such as the sun rising, weather, etc.). I also think religion makes people feel as if they matter, and aren't just floating on a spec out in space. It's probably a combo of both of these things that caused so many religions to exist. Just my own thoughts on the matter though.