Ok, so in reply to a couple of posts on here, here is my response to the whole question of gods/God and if this offends, or the admin want to remove it, then so be it.
I have studied history, to quite a good level and have covered many time zones in this study and also looked into many leaders or Kings and seen how they have manipulated the religion subject to their own end.
Obviously Henry 8th is a good question in point. He didn’t like his mrs, so he created a new religion that allowed himself to get divorced, almost as many times as he liked and this religion is the main religion in the UK as we speak. There is also evidence, lots of it against the catholic church, paganism, sun worshiping and most other organised religions.
Egotististical monsters, such as Hitler, Marx, Ceaser….you pick a number have only ever manipulated it as a way of controlling people. Back in the 18/1900’s there is much evidence to suggest that men worked all the hours that god sent monday to saturday and to stop people from straying, sundays were not only taken up with church in the morning, but church activites all day, so that people thought that the church was marvellous, but also gave them no time to think for themselves.
I used to do all of the church stuff, even used to be a sunday school teacher, but then I realised that life was out of there. If ‘God’ was truely all around then why did I have to go to church on a sunday for the most boring hour of my life, when he was ‘all around’?.
I believe in people, their spirits, and also an afterlife. I cannot see why even the most complex chemical reactions in out brains would actually just be it, when we spend our lives living and learning, and then nothing. I acutally, and you can be as sceptical as you like here, saw my mum’s spirit leave her body when she died, and that has got to have moved onto the next plane/plain, but this has nothing to do with somebody declaring that priests should not be allowed to marry, that you must go and be bored on a sunday and whenever else to worship your own ‘god’ and anything else.
I think that the essence of most religions should be applied to our everyday lives-the ten commandments, the comapssion and the following the ‘rules’ etc, this is and has to be the way that mankind gets on, on this planet, but the way that us humans are ‘programmed’ is that somebody or something has to be responsible for the bad and good things in our lives ends up in us believeing in something that is beyond our control. Each and everyone of us has to believe in something higher or better than ourselves in order to survive. I don’t consider myself to be aethiest, if anything a pagan, but whenever we need help in something we all say ‘please god’ or something good happens we say ‘thankyou god’.
I know nothing, but you decide, just my humble point of view.
xxxx
Boadicea's Chariot 
Kate, I don’t think that Henry created a new religion. It was pretty much the old one. The only difference really was that he wasn’t answerable to the Pope. It did have quite interesting repercussions but it was to my mind, a political decision.
In truth, I think you are agreeing with my point that religion is not a bad basis for a system of ethics which actually underlies our society and the basis of our legal system.
I don’t disagree, but today, we have the “luxury ” of a private belief in how we view it, and yours sounds pretty good to me.
Thanks Araminta-I like your end quote. That is how it is now. How many of us would chose to live under the full repression of a religion in this day and age.
I have a problem with past literature too, could just be me-I cannot believe, as much as I yearn for some of the old ways, the ‘feminine’ hero’s of that time-like Jane Eyre, those dappy sisters from all of Jane Austen books, even the way that Lawrence portrayed his women, I would spit in their faces.
Maybe it is lucky that I was born in this centuary, because there is no way that I would have lived in any repressed times.
(in saying that, at some point, I will blog on my views on the feminest state of the world today, not something that I can explain right now, needs a few paragraphs.)
xxx
As Araminta said, Henry VIII did not create a new religion, but he changed the accepted tenet of the Roman Catholic Church that the Pope was head of the Church and stuck himself in Prime Position so that he could get what he wanted. And in that I agree that religious beliefs have been manipulated and changed to suit those in power.
Not everyone needs to look to an outside power to pray to or to thank, it’s an individual thing and should be a matter for the individual – no one should be allowed to inflict their views on anyone else. But therein lies the problem – far too many people push their opinion into the public arena and demand that other people live by their beliefs. For example – I am not permitted to end my life with dignity because someone else believes that their God wants me to suffer…
Looking forward to your views on feminism, Kate. I suspect they will accord with mine.
Actually I love Jane Austen’s heroines, they weren’t all milksops:
ttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7771367/Beautiful-Minds-Jane-Austens-Heroines.html
Oops sorry link doesn’t work.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7771367/Beautiful-Minds-Jane-Austens-Heroines.html
Boadicea – “far too many people push their opinion into the public arena and demand that other people live by their beliefs” ……Fully agree with you.
ok
So you are living in 1610-yes, what the government say must be obeyed
1710-yes, the rules must be obyed again, we are scared to be catholic, we are scared to go agiainst the grain….
1800’s we will go back to beliving in the nwely formed Christian church, Queen Victoria believes in this system, so must we.
!910-the world needs a change, the industrial revolution has happened, we are making our own destiny, the war is coming, be over by christmas, the titanic has sunk, but GOD must be in charge of our destiny.
2010-Well, here we are see, some people want to blieve in this old fashioned system, but the majority of us will use religion as a cause, and the reason to cause unrest etc. Even though most of the countries in the world are doing ok, we have to confirm ulyimately to thie idiots that are in power.
xxx
Ah, well, Kate; see my last comment on Celibacy: we are not that far apart in our thinking.
xx
Your problem with “past literature”, Oggy Kate, seems to be that you do not judge it against the society of the time in which it was written. I’m not sure what “dappy” means and I assume you are using it to describe the Bennett sisters, but Jane Eyre was what I would call a tough little cookie in modern parlance. Why would you want to spit in her face?
Ara, I’m reading “Sense and Sensibility” at the moment. For the, uh, third time, maybe. Have you seen the movie “Lost in Austen”?
Kate, I have the feeling you are taking Pascal’s wager – just in case it’s true. “…I cannot see why even the most complex chemical reactions in our brains would actually just be it, when we spend our lives living and learning, and then nothing.” I cite the example of fire. When it’s out, it’s out.
Being raised as a Greek Orthodox with a Salvation Army father and going to a strict CofE school my thought on religion are plain and simple.
It is a good ethos for living but also a way for people to control others and force them into following an unproven deity.
So far there is no real proof that a god still exists or that there ever was one. The idea that followed by some that the world is 6000 years old is complete rubbish. The world has been here for billions of years and we have evolved.
Now if someone or something started that process I have no idea, but if they did they are not watching over things now.