Studying religions is actually fun!
Again, I don't mean studying religions from a religious standpoint. But just studying different philosophies of these religions, different stories, their gods, their prophets if any...
I recently read about how the God of the Abrahamic religions developed. Apparently he started off as "Yahweh", who was some D list god of storms in some Canaanite religion. The early Israelites adopted him as their God initially. He was angry, dangerous and not "loving". But then, over time, this character got combined with another god "El", who was the bearded, wise "god of gods" that capital G God is often depicted as. The history of this is so cool!
Apparently Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, which seemed to be a trend then? Apparently there were OTHER failed Jewish prophets who claimed to be messiahs who would rebuild the temple of God in Israel (which the Jewish folk wanted to do for a very long time?).
Then Muhammad comes in, claims that God's word was eventually corrupted throughout the centuries by humans, and that the Quaran is the uncorrupted word of God himself. Also, the "I am the last prophet, and that anyone who claims to be a prophet after me is a false prophet" clause was quite interesting to me!
Then you have the Hindus doing their own thing. Apparently there's more to Hinduism than just mythology and the Gods. Apparently certain schools of Hinduism are kinda atheistic too???? Quick clarification though. Atheistic does not necessitate scientific thought. Buddhism largely does not proclaim God too???
I used to view religions as unscientific explanations of the world and an attempt to assert objective morality. I mean this isn't wrong, but religions are so much more than that! They're thousands of years of human stories and mythologies, usually quite creative! You can see how cults form, how different cults are appropriated, how they are used by the ruling class to keep on ruling...
I dunno, it's just fun to read about and learn about!
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How is this unpopularopinion? It is a full blown study topic and I also find it fascinating. I mean, could be considered unpopular in the same sense as people don't like learning about math or school in general
I thought that it was mostly religious folk who studied religion. Considering that this place is quite atheist in nature, I thought it would be unpopular.
Well, I would say, religious people look into it from the inside and call it theology, while people looking in from the outside call it anthropology or cultural studies or other such thing.
A lot of people here are allergic to anything spiritual
I would disagree. People are not allergic to spiritual stuff but rather religion, i.e. organised spirituality. Because that invites power structures, corruption and abuse.
They're great stories, and very entertaining. Stories. Keyword.
Regrettably many people think that all religions are just picking some deity (or deities) to worship, because they route their understanding via Christianity. Plus you get the additional problem of people really not grasping how you can't just translate concepts 1=1. "God" in Christianity is VERY different than "God" in Buddhism. One of my favorite pet peeves is when people take something like the idea of Reincarnation and say it doesn't make sense because they only look at it through the lens of their own (Western, usually) cultural and philosophical conditioning. It's like taking a power plug from Europe and then call it poorly designed when it doesn't fit into a socket in the USA.
Many religions have plenty of very very sophisticated philosophy behind them, and often the belief systems were functional, as far as they went, for people's every day lives. Interesting thing is that some of the philosophical frameworks actually are on an equal footing with scientific materialism, namely the ones in the sphere of nonduality. They're equally unprovable and disprovable as matter-first philosophy, yet materialism has posited itself as first in the minds of most people. Meaning, many people think that all other worldviews must adhere to materialist sensibilities, including ones that challenge the idea that matter comes first - which is actually logically fallacious but people don't like it when that's pointed out.
Keep on studying!
100% this, it's very important to understand how different different cultures can be. Something a lot of people often get wrong about other religions is that they believe there are virtues and sins and punishment after death like there are in Abrahamic religions.
I totally agree with this. Theological study is pretty great for the cultural education. It's only shitty if you start believing in the myths.
I agree. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
I’m wondering why you think it’s unpopular though?
The folks I'm surrounded with approach God as a scientific concept. I mean it's not a wrong approach by any means btw. It's just that when approached scientifically, theism sounds like absolute bullshit. Kinda like how old plague doctors and blood letting would sound like to modern doctors. Hence, studying it (at least in my circle) sounds like a waste of time. Which is why I thought this opinion would be unpopular.
BUT approaching it from the historical perspective, where it's something that humans did/still do makes things so much more interesting!
Indeed. Don’t forget the psychological aspects of it though. Deeply fascinating how the human brain craves meaning/purpose and will brute force separate ideas to fit together.
Wait till you get to the religion v. religion part. It's a hoot.
I knew studying religions was fun since watching Indiana Jones.
I agree. Check out Gnosticism next. In my opinion, Gnosticism developed as the "correct" version of Christianity in the times after Jesus Christ was purported to live, but was a religious movement considered to be heresy by the church of the time. There's some really cool stuff in there.