Is there a popular religion that is not completely centered around humans? I find these whole "happiness" and "charity" concepts fake and disturbing.
As in good deeds = making other humans happy or whatever.
Yah, I am not big on religion.
As in good deeds = making other humans happy or whatever.
Yah, I am not big on religion.
When a Martian delegation visited Earth in the 1950's, they studied the dominant lifeforms in order to understand the hierarchical organisation of any potential Earth defences.
After several weeks of undercover observation, the chief Martian explorer reported that life on Earth had at its apex the most powerful and revered predator which had subjugated all other lifeforms on all 5 continents.
Whilst the Martian term for this predator is unpronounceable, NASA cryptographers determined that the organism identified by the explorers was the automobile.
You've rather missed the point if you seek a religion not focused on humanity, because in every case religion is an explanation for the persistent mystery of the purpose of our own self-knowledge. If a cosmology does not present a teleological explanation for the existence (and often, attendant suffering) of its followers, it is more a pseudo-science than a religion.
Arguably Scientology strays the furthest from "human centered," with an eschatology apparently centered around humans being mere vessels for other beings. But still, this is an apologia for the existence of humanity.
Take negotiation or haggling over price. You know you want to pay a max of X, so you offer X-Y and on the other end the same happens in reverse until both sides hopefully reach a Z somewhere close enough to their own X that they agree to make the transaction. You alway ask for something extra in a negotiation that you can give up on or bargain with that doesn't really hurt.
If I apply this to population control via religion, your teachings should be about the absolute best behaviours. You burn in hell if you don't behave like X etc. Makes total sense to me as in reality people as a whole will deviate to a certain extent. But by insisting on X, on average everyone arrives at Z.
Of course this makes no sense to you or me or other atheists that are perfectly capable of being decent human beings without all the religious mumbo jumbo. But if you were charged with keeping a large populous of all sorts of different people under control, how would you do that? "Reasoning" with them is likely not to yield the kind of results you want, especially if we are talking living conditions of hundreds to thousands of years ago.
The trick is to be the high priest, not the sacrifice ;)
I found this to be such a welcome change from "me me Me, Hey There, look here its ME" religions. I am not a Buddhist.
I don't understand what you mean by "completely centered around humans".
Judaism is centered around worship of God, who is not human... but like every other human religion the worshipers themselves are human, so I guess in the sense that it has human worshipers it is "centered around humans".. is that what you mean?
"I find these whole "happiness" and "charity" concepts fake and disturbing"
Why do you think they're fake?
"As in good deeds = making other humans happy or whatever"
What's the problem with that?
What really pissed me was the insistence that god > hebrews > other humans> animals. What utter junk
You're totally in your right to be skeptic.
Yet, one hour of your time reading a part of it without introduction or reference may not be how you will gain anything from it (whatever the gain would be, confirmation/deepening/deconstruction of your skepticism).
The backbone of all religions is based on the personal mystical experiences of individuals like Jesus, Mohammad, Budha and many others.
They experienced some kind of personal transformation and feeling of being connected with everything around them.
A lot of religious and spiritual practices are based on developing that feeling within yourself through various trainings.
Monks for example are deep in this territory and may practice meditation for hours and hours a day. When you do that you become very sensitive to changes within yourself and start to see how various stimuli might effect you. They might experience that being charitable and loving etc unlocks deep levels of joy and blissfusness but if they do the opposite they might face a decrease in such feelings etc
So it’s not so much you have to be charitable for some moral reason but more you have to be charitable if you want to experience certain feelings within yourself that are much more pleasant than what you may experience if you do the opposite.
Many, not all. Basically newer religions that were founded by an individual such at the ones you mentioned. Ancient, but still practiced, religions, such as Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Native American religions and so on have a different, more nuanced, origin.
It's still pretty strange to expect a human coping / structuring mechanism like religion to not put humans on a prominent (though usually not very respectable) place.
Taking the cynical angle, charity can come from a place of self-interest if it makes you feel good.
In my experience, I've met many people with Buddhist backgrounds that are giving by default. Most of them have come from countries where this way of being is deeply rooted in the culture, and therefore their charity is often reciprocated (or at least not punished), and the behaviour is rewarded. On the flip side, there are some Buddhist monks in recent times who've incited populist violence against minorities, so the picture is complicated. On the whole, though, it's very different to the individualist default of much of the Anglosphere.
Or do you expect human religions to try to appeal to animals?
I'm not religious, so I can't speak from experience; however, I think they speak about people having dominion over nature --dominion here, in that context, meaning stewardship, rather than selfish control. So from that Pov they consider nature.
They seem to represent evolution of lifeforms as well as human society.
We have reached 9, the 10th is a horse faced being, it is either alien, human evolution or a new species that would replace man.
Any animals, plants, trees and rocks are also considered divine and have their own festivals.
Nepali Kukur tihar is a festival for dogs.
Bhagavatam contains 22 avatars of Vishnu. The arbitrary selection of 10 which sometimes include Buddha is a later day invention.
> They seem to represent evolution of lifeforms as well as human society.
This is Theospohical interpretation with no basis in actual scripture. It's like using the Book of Mormon to interpret the Old Testament.
> the 10th is a horse faced being
Kalki is said to ride a horse, not have a horse's head. The horse headed avatar is Hayagriva who oddly enough isn't included in dasavatara.
The Murthis or deities in every temple however small are such manifestation.
Major manifestations are avatars. I took this from this video based on a carving that is more than 2000 years old.