Faith and Humanity

The books are the religion, without them, there wouldn't be a religion to follow. You could have preachers without a book, but then it would probably resemble the Celtic Religion where it ended up with 100s of gods, I believe upwards near a 1000 or more. There was no written book for the Druids and they conveyed the stories themselves, which obviously makes the religion unique in different areas.

But with the bible and other holy books, it creates consistency within a religion, something everyone looks to for answers. But even then the books change, so there's not much that is consistent in religion in my eyes. If it were 100% completely true and consistent, then there'd be one religious book and thus one religion; or atleast consistent one. Instead we have multiple religions and with each one multiple sects in them. So, how do you grade a book, when there isn't one that can be widely accepted as the true one? Do we grade the bible and koran against the Torah since it started the Abrahamic Branch?

To grade something, you need to find something to grade it against, otherwise it's pointless. All followers say their belief is true, so how do you find the one that is of a higher grade?

 

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are trying to say, but grading something to me means putting a rank or value that is higher or lower then others in a catagory. Usually you have something to measure up to, a medium I guess you can say. But we don't, atleast as far as I know.

Originally posted by gcle Buddhism gets on very well with the idea of an eternal, uncreated, universe, and has no 'being of superiority of the all ruling'. Anybody can be a Buddha, given time and right thought, right living and so forth.   Many animist religions have no concept of a single creator, or of a creation for that matter.   In fact you'll have to look at animism to find the origins of religion since that's the oldest of all religious beliefs.

Thanks for the info on Buddhism. I think that shows that humans aren't born with the idea of a supernatural being in mind, but is passed on by culture.

To this day many Shamans in central Asia still believe in animism and ancestral spirits from what I understand. Do these religions stretch back thousands of years before written religion? I was always curious about them in that regard. With written religion we have a good idea of the age they are, but with Shamanism and such, I never really see a age put on them.