True religion

[paigetheoracle]

Whatever inspires (moves) you, is your religion. It is not what you defend to the death (politics) but promote to the hilt. It is not the label you attach to yourself (belief system/ club you join) but the life you lead at every instant. It is the live individual you are and your creative response-ability (loyalty changes as your love interest changes - abandoning one thing for another, in pursuit of the different, the new, the stimulating rather than the soporific, old, sameness.

 

It is not atheism - that's another label saying I belong to this club, not that (Someone else's Go(o)d (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Communism, Science etc).

 

For me it is discovering how water inflates plant cells and creates growth and discovering the connection between members of the pea family (lupin, veitch, laburnam, gorse, broom, sweat pea etc)

[sman]

This reminds me of the '60s -'70s redefinitions of God. "God is love", "God is goodness", "God is what you make Him". These are designed to de-fuse religiouse arguments by broadening the definition. The problem is that it makes it very confusing what's being talked about. For much of the world "God" is a testoserone poisoned, misogynistic sky god from the broze age middle east. Strickly. And religion is the worship of this jealous deity. To redefine "religion" as whatever moves you is just confusing. I'd love to talk about what moves you, to define that and maybe even come up with some terminology specific to it, but I don't thik we should borrow the terminology from religion - that's already being used.

[HydrogenBond]

One sort of needs religious arguments to define religion, because these ideas come from the experts in this particular field. It may be hard for an atheist to define something they don't participate in, therefore don't fully understand from the inside out. Or their participation and memory of the subject came from a time, when they were young and green.

 

For example, say we had a person who took a biology course in high school and shifted majors because the subject didn't agree with them. They are then held up as the expert and are in charge of defining biology for all the PhD's. The layman don't have enough direct experience, at an advanced level, to be qualified for that position and would create confusion and misunderstanding as they project to fill in the blanks.

 

In these forums, one is not even required to present expert reference for the topic of religion, but can show proof by quoting disgruntled laymen. Maybe we can do this with the rest of science in the forums, and make the layman opinion the final say. Would censoring experts in religion or science lead to better understanding?

[paigetheoracle]

This reminds me of the '60s -'70s redefinitions of God. "God is love", "God is goodness", "God is what you make Him". These are designed to de-fuse religiouse arguments by broadening the definition. The problem is that it makes it very confusing what's being talked about. For much of the world "God" is a testoserone poisoned, misogynistic sky god from the broze age middle east. Strickly. And religion is the worship of this jealous deity. To redefine "religion" as whatever moves you is just confusing. I'd love to talk about what moves you, to define that and maybe even come up with some terminology specific to it, but I don't thik we should borrow the terminology from religion - that's already being used.

 

What you're talking about is the past and people trying to form a concept of God. My definition comes from present experience and is based on wonder. It is more like primitive people's idea of nature worship or Gnosticism and even Zen. It is not about following the 'leader' or having a God outside the self: This does not mean God doesn't exist outside of you as well as within but that the two are linked, not seen as separate (Communion - communication with the divine).

 

When I talked of water and plants, it made me realize how I could play God by giving plants the simple gift of water to help them or the (D)evil by cutting it off and watching them die: The dualistic universe of give and take/ positive and negative/ depression and elation (atheism is depression in my book because it doesn't see anything g(o)od in the world: If you do not understand emotion in the world, then you cannot understand heaven and hell as journeys into and out of reality - retreat and advance). It is peak experience, like my holiday in Wales and another one in The West Country - landscape and the wonders of nature (elation as opposed to the dark night of the soul or depression as it is more commonly called: When we are depressed, the world is full of demons - a hostile place we want to escape from. When we are in the manic state, then the world is full of angels - a friendly place we want to stay in or join (States of mind that alter our perception of what is there, even though in reality it just the same place and our movement towards or away from it, that creates this perception and judgment "There is no heaven or hell but that 'thought' makes it so", to misquote the bard).

 

It is as I say 'connection' (intelligence/ union) as when I suddenly cognited on the characteristics of members of the pea family, which for years I'd seen as different plants with no relationship (A BBC program where a botanist pointed out that all these different plants had the same flowers and seed pods, knocked me out with an 'of course!' Eureka moment.

 

Religion's other side is rules for living which Christ was notable in ignoring (No, thou shall/ shall not but parables to allow people to make up their own mind 'think' - for themselves in other words). In this way he was more like Socrates - leading people to think, not accept blindly other people's views or as science would say 'take nobody's word for it'. If you want others to tell you what things are - why have senses? If you want others to take responsibility for your life - why bother living yourself?

[watcher]

common to all religion is the promise of eternal life. iow, the desire for immortality.

in this sense there is no true religion

because the one who wants to live forever ...

... does not exists !

[paigetheoracle]

common to all religion is the promise of eternal life. iow, the desire for immortality.

in this sense there is no true religion

because the one who wants to live forever ...

... does not exists !

 

Physical immortality is what science can achieve, not religion. What spirituality is out to get you to do is live and that means be alive in the moment - happiness is going beyond time. By this I mean it doesn't matter to you that your body may be dead in ten minutes, relatively speaking, but that you are happy at this second (If you are miserable, time drags on through an eternity of suffering but if you are happy it disappears instantly and you don't care because you grab at each instant with the same enthusiasm (life/ light). It's the difference between being in a prison, counting down the days to your release and being free and enjoying the moment. Who wants to build a better prison for themselves, no matter how comfortable? Read up what Einstein says about time.

[watcher]

Physical immortality is what science can achieve, not religion.

science are lobbied by different people with all sorts of persuasions.

but all major religions have a promise of eternal life and everlasting happiness, specially if you toe the dogmatic line. otherwise, you go to hell. its all about control.

 

What spirituality is out to get you to do is live and that means be alive in the moment - happiness is going beyond time. By this I mean it doesn't matter to you that your body may be dead in ten minutes, relatively speaking, but that you are happy at this second (If you are miserable, time drags on through an eternity of suffering but if you are happy it disappears instantly and you don't care because you grab at each instant with the same enthusiasm (life/ light).

 

yap. iow. religion and spirituality give comfort and security psychologically. we need to believe in a supreme being (whether in we call this god, reality, life or universe) who loved us and will take care of us. the idea comforts us, makes us happy.

 

as i have mentioned. the one who wants all this happiness is the egoic self which exists nothing but only as an idea.

 

It's the difference between being in a prison, counting down the days to your release and being free and enjoying the moment. Who wants to build a better prison for themselves, no matter how comfortable? Read up what Einstein says about time.

 

the promise of inner freedom is also a concocted story that you have imposed upon your self. ironically the beliefs and ideas and desires that you think will set you free are the ones that bind you.

[Glenn Lyvers]

Whatever inspires (moves) you, is your religion.

 

This is supported by scripture, but I'm sure you knew that. Most theologians believe and teach that the command "Thou shalt have no other God's before me" (See Exodus 20:3 (Deuteronomy 5:7, Judges 6:10, Hosea 13:4) is not a profession that other Gods do indeed exist, but rather what you said, that what people focus on is their "God". There are many other passages that speak to this but I don't want to say too much about that because showing examples of scripture might be misunderstood to be proselytizing or digressing from your point.

 

Suffice to say, your point is well taken and I think that, while scientists and theologians may read it differently, many of them can agree on this idea.

 

Peace

[sman]

This is supported by scripture, but I'm sure you knew that. Most theologians believe and teach that the command "Thou shalt have no other God's before me" (See Exodus 20:3 (Deuteronomy 5:7, Judges 6:10, Hosea 13:4) is not a profession that other Gods do indeed exist, but rather what you said, that what people focus on is their "God".

 

 

What theologians don't teach is that in an environment of many compeating and irreconsilable ideologies, like the fertile crescent of 1st milleniem BC, any that include a ritual belief like "Thou shalt have no other God's before me" will be more likely to survive for us to talk about today than the ones that lack this neat isolation mechanism. There is no intrinsic merit to the thing...it's just that it promots itself in a competetive environment.

Other examples of beneficial religious traits supported by scripture are food taboos, branding of infants, instructions for genocide, enslavement of outgroups, error correction by stoning.....and I do not believe we have to venture from the Deuteronomy for these examples.

 

Again, the only reason these traits survived while those of contemporary religions did not is their incidental ability to augment or secure their own frequency in the culture. The automatic processes that gave rise to these belief complexes, like the processes of chemistry or physics, are utterly indifferent to the desires and the trials of humans.

 

Religions are self-defining entities. Super-organisms, if you will. They do not share territory. "Religion" is a normalizing catagory with definate boundaries and a personal passion for sweet peas simply does not meet the criteria.

 

I don't mind a little proselytizing in the theology forum, personally. I've all but encouraged you to do it in other threads. But you have to expect by now that I will reply with a more prosaic perspective. ;-)

[Glenn Lyvers]

I agree with you that many theologians fail to teach a balanced approach to issues. I simply hoped to point out the religious support for the point of the thread, in order to contrast science and religion on this point which might have some common ground.

 

Also, a certain amount of scrutiny needs to be given to religious texts, of course. They have survived for thousands of years, and as you rightly point out, this is due in part because, even from the very start, religion is both moral instruction and big business.

 

Certain scriptures, like forcing tithing and commanding that people put no other interests before "God" (Don't lose sight of the topic please) are obviously suspect because they are so self-serving to the churches.

 

I'll digress only a little more to state that you are correct that many things in doctrine are designed to serve the desires of the churches, particularly to force donations and the recruitment of more contributors. Theologians certainly fail to address this elephant in the room.

 

I hoped to speak directly to the topic of the thread, and not to proselytize. To have a fair approach to open dialog here, one cannot assume that every reference to doctrine is an agenda. I think if you re-read my post with fresh eyes, you will see it was on topic and that I did not intend to proselytize.

 

Peace,

Glenn

[sman]

 

Certain scriptures, like forcing tithing and commanding that people put no other interests before "God" (Don't lose sight of the topic please) are obviously suspect because they are so self-serving to the churches.

 

I'll digress only a little more to state that you are correct that many things in doctrine are designed to serve the desires of the churches, particularly to force donations and the recruitment of more contributors. Theologians certainly fail to address this elephant in the room.

 

 

"Churches" is another one of these beneficial traits of religion. They can behave like big business, or corporations, but I think this is true of any organization that has the power to influence its own survival - it takes steps to stay in power. When looking for an analogue of religion itself, don't think "corporation", think "malaria".

[modest]

Most theologians believe and teach that the command "Thou shalt have no other God's before me" (See Exodus 20:3 (Deuteronomy 5:7, Judges 6:10, Hosea 13:4) is not a profession that other Gods do indeed exist, but rather what you said, that what people focus on is their "God". There are many other passages that speak to this but I don't want to say too much about that because showing examples of scripture might be misunderstood to be proselytizing or digressing from your point.

 

I would agree to an extent.

 

Some people object to the monotheistic idea in Judaism (or the idea that Judaism has always been monotheistic) by pointing out scripture which refers to "other gods" (besides the god of Abraham). The example you give above would be one. Others would be Ex.18:11, Ex.12:12, Jud.11:24. This is not indicative of great scholarship because it's a bit misleading.

 

If we define god as omnipotent and eternal then even the oldest books in the bible maintain the theme that there is only one such god. References to other gods represent a rather liberal usage of the word sometimes even applying it to idols, like when the people following Moses said "make us a god"—what they meant was "make us an idol".

 

At most we could say that some ancient Israelites believed that the 'lower gods' were real, but just not powerful. Jer. 10: 10-11 for example,

But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation. Thus you shall say to them, "The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens."

Zeph. 2:11 could also be construed as referring to real beings. But, never are these possibly real beings talked about as all-powerful or anything like that, something which Isaiah settles clearly in chapter 45 where he imagines god saying "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me."

 

I think it would be proper to say Judaism has been strongly monotheistic from at least 500 BC. Of course, monotheism can currently only be attributed to about half the world's population and has historically been even lower. So, by no stretch can it be considered a property of "true religion", but more properly: an acceptable property of religion.

 

I don't mind a little proselytizing in the theology forum, personally. I've all but encouraged you to do it in other threads.

 

Neither do I, but Glenn is correct that the 4064 are dead-set against it—something us mods will indeed enforce.

 

~modest :steering:

[HydrogenBond]

Defining the word "religion" is fraught with difficulty. Many attempts have been made. Most seem to focus too narrowly on only a few aspects of religion; they tend to exclude those religions that do not fit well. As Kile Jones wrote in his essay on defining religion:

 

"It is apparent that religion can be seen as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological phenomenon of human kind. To limit religion to only one of these categories is to miss its multifaceted nature and lose out on the complete definition." All of the definitions that we have encountered contain at least one deficiency:

 

Some exclude beliefs and practices that many people passionately defend as religious. For example, their definition might include belief in a God or Goddess or combination of Gods and Goddesses who are responsible for the creation of the universe and for its continuing operation. This excludes such non-theistic religions as Buddhism and many forms of religious Satanism which have no such belief.

 

Some definitions are so broadly written that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religious. For example, David Edward's definition would seem to include cosmology and ecology within his definition of religion -- fields of investigation that most people regard to be a scientific studies and non-religious in nature.

 

I tend to like the broadest definition, since it takes into consideration any of the theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological conscious and unconscious motivations associated with strongly held beliefs.

[paigetheoracle]

I think some people posting here are getting lost in 'preconceptionitis'. By this I mean they are reacting to what their experience of religion is or what they 'think it is'. This is not really what this thread is about. It is about what is common to all people and without limits/ censure or censoring. It is the wonder of childhood, not the formal traditions, uniform and habits, carried out to show you belong to a particular club. Like I said, for me it is something like realizing that Summers heat causes evaporation, that helps draw water up through a plant via capillary action, enhancing the process that winter slows down through freezing cold days and nights, introverting all life.

 

True religion is caused by positive emotion (wonder/ awe), which draws us towards something (investigation/ learning experience/ interaction with the world around us/ attraction towards as negative emotion is about 'repulsion from' as neutrality is 'being there' (intellect/ lack of emotion). I am not on about 'the body of the church' i.e. system for processing what passes through it but 'the mind' and spirit of the individual, which has no allegiance to anything but the truth (the future has no identity - the past is all identity and nothing but).

 

Ego is wanting things to be a certain way and fighting to hide any revelation that threatens the validity of that belief. Doubt allows us to learn by questioning everything (being open to change). This is where science/ philosophy clash with ignorance - the quest for knowledge and the fear of change. It is the attitude of the individual that matters, not the belief system they find themselves born into or that they adopt ('It aint what you do, it's the way that you do it' (modify it to changed circumstances i.e. evolution of thought/ adaption of body): See also latest posting in placebo thread, in Questions.:D:doh::)

[sman]

I tend to like the broadest definition, since it takes into consideration any of the theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological, and psychological conscious and unconscious motivations associated with strongly held beliefs.

 

We can certainly broaden the definition to include anything we like. But still... there's this other thing going on in the world that we now need a name for. Whatever we call this, it has certain features which define the catagory: you can mark it out on a map, two varieties never inhabit the same brain, they change over time and seem to adapt to new environments...

 

The paragraph I quoted seems to me like the obverse of Gould's non-overlapping magisteria. It has the same goal: to evade conflict with powerful belief systems. It has the same effect: it exempts religion from scientific study.

 

Only recently, for the first time in the history of science, is religion coming under scientific investigation. This is why I think it's important that we think of religion in a crisp, well-defined way and not confuse it with the other things in our lives.

[lemit]

Paige,

 

I admire your courage. I suppose you understood when you started this that at least half, probably a lot more of the people responding would have no idea what you were talking about and would be very happy to demonstrate that.

 

I get it. I don't have any idea how or why I get it, but I get it. I think I was a small child when I got it. So, when other kids in the middle of the American Bible Belt were out playing or sleeping through church, I was being fascinated by the idea of Christian Existentialism or the songs of John Wesley or the writings of Paul Barth or Dietrich Bonhoeffer or the Apostle Paul. I was a somewhat isolated kid. I have since rejected Christianity as too limited, but it is within me as much as my lower-midwestern twang and the feeling that wearing shorts makes a man effeminate. It's just how I grew up.

 

But that has nothing to do with what you're talking about. What you're talking about is so difficult to explain that it's almost never approached directly and then is only understood by the people who understood it before they started learning about it.

 

I'd recommend as a short reading list for other people Emerson's "Nature," Whitman's "Song of Myself," and Eliot's "Four Quartets." Emerson's essay is kind of obvious. I'd love to hear about anybody getting it not from Emerson but from the others.

 

"Slaughterhouse Five" is a title that might be a little more accessible to modern people. (The "it" referred to above is the reason the end of "No Country For Old Men" is so confusing.)

 

Effabulating the ineffable is by definition impossible. But that doesn't stop a lot of people, fortunately. It has been the source of a lot of fascinating literature.

 

I have a few thousand thoughts on what a True Religion might be. This is just a little bit of a beginning. Religion is a wild animal that needs to be approached slowly, cautiously, with a still voice.

 

More later if I don't get devoured by that wild animal.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. I would consider "What the Hell are you talking about?" to be a very legitimate response to this post. It's probably how I'd respond most of the time.

[lemit]

Sorry. My laptop is going crazy. It just duplicated the above post. I think it might be possessed by demons.

 

--lemit