Stoney

@Kant, I’m only just now reading your comment; I missed it. "We must remember, however, that the original message has been distorted. That guy who lived 2000 years ago, so criticized by Odifreddi, said some very interesting things if we consider the underlying message not 'interpreted' by the Church." But who introduced you to the figure of Christ, “the real one”? Some friend of his who met him in person? Or is the figure of Christ that you have, like I do, like everyone does, the one filtered through 2000 years of ecclesiastical history, passed down to us by the Church itself? So, please, let’s call things as they are: what you BELIEVE to be the original message has been distorted, what it COULD have been ACCORDING TO YOU. Unfortunately, we have no alternative historical sources to the Gospels (which have been edited and trimmed over the centuries). Now, in historiography, no single document is accepted as unquestionably true, especially one with obvious signs of editing and alteration, to declare a historical truth with certainty, except in the case of the Gospels (who knows why). So, given the evidence, we have nothing certain: Christ could have been a true prophet preaching peace, a terrorist killing innocents, or even might have never existed; we will never know unless we blindly accept the truths of the Christian dogma.

Well, I would like to clarify a point that seems to me often underestimated: the issue of the "spontaneity" of religious feeling. But where? But when? Oh, but have you ever seen the tribes of Central Africa, the inhabitants of Micronesia or Central Australia, or Native Americans? Do you think their concept of divinity is remotely comparable to ours? Do they have perhaps cosmogonies written in thousands of pages that they venerate literally as we do? Do they have a Bible? Do they have the idea of a God who punishes, who reasons, who judges? Do they have a concept of "sin" similar to ours? Do they use religion to compel or divert people from doing or not doing this or that? NO! "Natural" religions are oriented towards celebrating the bond between man and nature, detached from the rigid moral and social meaning that for us instead is predominant (so much so that the deities are predominantly feminine, like Mother Earth, thus peaceful, life-generators, rather than masculine and paternal, thus authoritarian). And this is certainly not because our society is more complex than theirs, or because we are more "evolved" (because if someone claims that, they must also give me the exact definition of what is evolved and what is not, and with respect to various parameters). Religion as a political tool is an invention of ours, solely ours. The man who lives off the fruits of Nature does not need any God to teach him how to survive.

The problem is not the Vatican: it’s the institutions based on revealed monotheistic religions, whose role in history has always been limited to telling us what NOT to do and what NOT to think. After all, you'll agree that distinguishing between religion itself and its political representation on Earth, although theoretically possible, is quite pointless, since few develop a "spontaneous" religious feeling while practically everyone is indoctrinated.

Oops, the 5...

I don't have time right now, I'll read it as soon as I can. In the meantime, 5 just for the choice of the topic.

You hit the nail on the head, Kant. Indeed, this is the absurdity: religious teachings say that earthly life is less important than the transcendental one. This is why (religious) culture has accustomed us to endure every deprivation, every injustice, every distortion. It has simply convinced us that it is not important to demand rights and dignity here on Earth, it is not important to seek the truth. This is why everything seems obvious to us, from social inequalities, the planned massacres, poverty, to the simplest mockery towards a minority. It seems pointless to make an effort, and much more natural to turn our eyes to the sky and pray, hoping for divine assistance. That is why the modern way of life seems normal to us, and that is why as long as there are institutionalized religions on a global level, everything will remain the same as before. Because there is someone who justifies this state of affairs. Who knows who benefits from this mentality, oh well, who knows...

People might question their own names and surnames, if adequately convinced, they can vote for thieving politicians believing them to be innocent and accuse the innocent believing them to be thieves; they live in uncertainty about others and about themselves, they would even doubt their own mother, their own woman, and their own brothers, but when it comes to God and faith, they prove steadfast in their convictions, even going so far as to threaten you. This, for me, is the "mystery of faith," that is to have unshakeable faith in the invisible and distrust in the visible: but how is it done? Well!...

"God does not control life in the smallest details; rather, He has left man free to choose what is best for his own existence." Since He can't have told you this personally, either you deduced it from something, or you believe it by hearsay. Which one of the two?

Macaco, this book aims to demonstrate that God is a purely human conception, birthed by man and described by human language; the qualities that man attributes to God (especially moral ones) are human and depend on our judgment, influenced by our way of seeing reality and discerning things. Therefore, even if there were a God, He would certainly be very distant from what we vainly try to describe. All the discussions that can be made around God cannot arrive at any truth, not even the one that suggests that since there is something we cannot explain, there could be a regulating God of the universe. In fact, there is no connection between not being able to explain something and the existence of a supreme being that orders it. Does that seem obvious to you? It doesn't to me, at all. It seems to me instead that millions of people take for granted that God regulates their lives in the minutest details, and that's enough for them to explain everything, an attitude that can lead to absurd and unintelligent positions, as has always been the case in the past and, unfortunately, still is in the present.

"The notion that music is something to which geniuses apply themselves effortlessly and without study seems to me misleading, uneducational, and, ultimately, a bit idiotic." Words of wisdom.