Religion in the Us/World and in your life.

My pretentious musings about my near-total lack of a religious upbringing can be found here.

Most religions smell strongly of wishful thinking. Class and social structure seem to have a lot of influence; and all Gods, and heads of pantheons, are male. Funny that.

It totally seems logical that a God would have to be male even though there isn't a "Mrs. God" around.

For serious.

No really.

It's not like it was meant to "put women in their place" or anything.

Or make them feel guilty in Christ-based religions for tempting man.

I'm still serious.

A lot of my misgivings about religion is that religion doesn't have a lot to do with god(-s).
If it's really about god, why does it need to be socially controlled?
Doesn't god have the capacity and the power to make decisions? To kill people with thunderbolts, to send them to hell or heaven?
But no, we see humans carrying out "religious" laws and "religious" sentences, just as though those humans didn't actually believe what their own religion taught them about god and god's power. Is their god omnipotent, or not?
There's a simple answer to this conundrum: Most people who pronounce on religion (and I mean imams, bishops, popes etc.) don't really believe. They are actually talking about temporal power.

I grew up a Roman Catholic. Because my parents, my mother to be more precise was one. I had faith, I believed in God, but I got nothing out of going to church and I didn't exactly like all the rules and everything the Catholic church puts forth. I got to a point as I got older where I lost my faith.

A few years ago, I was introduced once again to basic Christianity. I went to church and for the first time felt something. I got something out of it, and it made me think and feel better. People were speaking about everyday things, and I was really enjoying myself. I found my faith again, and I became a Christian. I am by no means what many would think to be a bible thumper. For me, it's how I live my life, and my relationship with God. I don't speak about my beliefs to anyone unless they ask. I don't talk about any of it really.

I respect others beliefs. It doesn't matter to me if someone follows Taoism, Buddhism, whatever. I find all of it to be interesting, and I enjoy hearing what other people think and what they believe. I am not exactly a model Christian as most would see it, I don't feel the same as many do about many subjects and issues. Everyone is different, and sometimes, not everyone realizes that.

I wish you the best of luck in your studies, it sounds very exciting

Which is totally believable because it's not like they stone women to death for infidelity or anything. I mean, I'm pretty sure Mary was literally a virgin and Joseph was totally down with the whole "I didn't cheat on you, Joey - it's God's baby" story.

Totally plausible.

For myself, I'm more a follower of religious philosophy than religion itself. I find religious language to be a method of transmitting essential and mystical experiences through written and oral forms. I think the biggest mistake one can make is to take a fundamentalist, literalist view of scriptures when there is so much encoded in them that you can study and uncover for yourself, or with others and by this understanding have an experience that will enrich your life and change the way you view things.

As a young person I rejected religion outright, I was interested only in rationalism and the scientific method, this was until I had a profound and lifechanging psychedelic experience. Now, part of me, the rational part, said that this was just an intense sensory illusion brought about by a drug but the sheer beauty of what I experienced, and the way that it changed my outlook and indeed my personality led me to a deeper understanding that what I experienced was, if not real, at least a reflection of reality and contained a message about the way that the universe works that completely changed my life.

Since that time I have read countless books from all sorts of religious traditions and actively sought out such mystical experiences and indeed, I have found them and no longer need to search. I still read books like Tao Te Ching, and the Gnostic Gospels, The Bhagavad Gita and the Gathas of Zoroaster for the truths they tell about life and I still put myself in that state of Entheogenesis. I feel that this has brought me many steps along the path to egolessness, and made me a much more rounded person than the callow soul I once was.

Yea, I have to agree with the above poster. Too many times people look at scripture way to literally. Some of it is meant to be literal and should be taken that way, but most of it is not to be taken literally, although most Christians would probably disagree, which is another thing that sets me apart from the Christian norm heh.

Of Heaven and Heretics

Religion is a societies way of dealing with its harder question. Death, infinity, pain, suffering, the beginning, end, time, sociology, etc.

Sometimes its a way to deal with the limits of our minds and imaginations. Before some aspects of science was understood they were thought to be magic or spirits. Another quote.

Or with emotions such as grief. Its hard to let go of someone with the thought of never seeing them again. It becomes much easier with thoughts that they are in a better place and we get to see them again when we die.

Then there is purpose. Do we all have one? Are we mistakes or something created? Are we alone?

I try not to hold myself to one religion or another. I pick and choose almost selfishly among the ones i have read about and I keep the ideas I like best. For me god is not some conscious being. God is everything. God is all of us but no one in particular. And there is no heaven or hell. Its more of a life cycle. Its reincarnation in a way i suppose but my being as a whole will not come back as specifically a duck or some new person. It comes back as many things. My being(energy?) comes back in many different forms. From dirt to animals to plants to heat given off by my decay. I couldn't tell you weather or not my thinking mind is in any way aware of itself when i pass. And no one can really say. I'm only starting to study and work with meditation so I also could not say if I could ever even find the answer to that question. I do realize however that there is something special about us all. My ability to think about these things amazes me and makes me wonder even more. I could go on and on asking myself many more questions and finding many different answers. But that is probably better left for a book or at least the group i posted above.

i went through 12 years of catholic school.

My sophmore year in high school is what changed my perspective of religion. I was sitting in a religion class, and decided to ask the teacher "There are other religions other than christianity, what about the people that firmly believe in those religions, what happens to them when their time has come"

The teacher babbled something about worshiping false idols and i was whisked away to a counselor's office to determine the extent of my faith.

I have been surrounded by catholicism my whole life, it's been pounded into my head. To the point it actually makes me sick. Church in general makes me laugh. I don't go. The main reason i don't go is because i watch people basically be assholes to everyone for 6.75 days of the week, and in the .25 time they spend in church evidently absolves them of the way they have treated other people. Do they learn from it? No, as they are leaving church they actually treat people like assholes on their way out.

I explored other religions, baptist, pentecostal and a few others, but figured out one thing. The people for the most part are the same. Treat people like shit then go to church and get absolved of that. They also push their religion like it's crack, like it's the only "right" one and they have very little tolerance for other religions.

So, i basically came to this belief. I believe in God. I don't however believe in any specified organized religion. I believe that if i treat people with respect and do what i think is best, or doing good, i need nothing absolved. if i talk to God, and hold an open friendship with him, not a forced friendship,( like "having to go to church", it doesn't seem anyone ever says "i want to go to church" they always say "I have to go to church", that seems forced to me.) and tell him when i realize i have done something wrong, that i won't have any troubles when my time comes, whenever it may be.

I guess what it comes down to is, that i have faith that God exists, i just have no faith in people that organize religions. I can't imagine God wanting people to feel like they HAVE to worship him, rather than just keep an open relationship with him. That just doesn't make sense to me.

The problem is that once you remove the literal reading, it crosses (or moves dangerously close) to that line between religion and philosophy. Once it becomes a philosophy instead of a religion it becomes subject to the same standards of argument, proof, and of being questioned as any other philosophy. And without blind faith to back them up, religion can be a tad thin.

Religion is a continuing struggle for me.

I was raised Roman Catholic...Baptized, received Holy Communion & Confirmed. However...there are certain stances taken by the Catholic Church that I find reprehensible and cannot stand behind it.

Beyond Catholicism...There are certain things that I just cannot make myself believe. Virgin births, water into wine, walking on water, resurrection, the denial of evolution...I can't take any of that to heart knowing that I just do not believe in it. That is where my faith has died.

Where I struggle...is in my attempt to completely separate myself from all religious belief. For example, I have a tattoo in recognition of Saint Florian, the Patron Saint of Firefighters. Why do I have it if I don't truly believe in Catholicism?

I suppose that is the part of me that believes that it is comforting to think that there is some supernatural force looking out for you. Like the saying goes...there are no Atheists in a foxhole. Now...do I BELIEVE that the ghost of St. Florian is literally protecting me? No...but if the theory of divine intervention is comforting...I don't see the harm in it...even if it is slightly hypocritical.

We also have The Fireman's Prayer...and more than a few firemen have had their helmets blessed by a priest.

So there's is my delemna. Obviously...if I though it was complete bunk I wouldn't bother. However...I cannot convince my logical side to go along with the hocus-pocus aspect of religion.

its a funny thing. I'm Jewish, but Im not religious. I don't keep shabbat, I keep kosher to some degree and I'm a Yom Kippur/Rosh HaShanna synagogue attender

Yet I love my religion. I love perusing occasionally through the commentaries of the tanach and reading the commentaries (Rashi, Rambam, Ramban, the tosfot, etc.) and to hear their interpretation of the scriptures. I love reading what their take on what god meant by XYZ. I love the legalistic debates the rabbis had in the talmud over the various minutiae of life.

I love that some of my religion's most influential leaders, such as Saadia Gaon, believed that one had to apply analytical philosophy to one's religion, and that this wouldn't weaken but would strengthen it. As such, I loved being able to walk into a chabad study center and listen to the debates and interpretations that people come up with on what the tanach or rabbis meant and sometimes engage in it myself. I loved being on a Jerusalem bus debating my friend on divine nature and not having to worry I was committing blaspheme and was taking the express to hell.

To that end I've met very religious rabbis who were sympathetic and understanding to things like homosexuality (saying one should not turn away or shame another human being), stem cell research and the like. And that was pretty cool .

Perhaps rather dualistically, I love the individualism and communalism of my religion. The fact that you can live apart from everything else, no rabbi, no community and still be in touch with god, one on one through prayer, study and contemplation always impressed me. You don't need a priest or a rabbi to talk to god for you, you can do it yourself one on one. For example Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest figures in Jewish history (upon whose torturous death, the midrash says, god was so pained that it threatened to obliterate the heavens were the angels to speak a word about it), who as legend has it spent the first 40 years of his life as an illiterate shepherd, communing with god via his own song.

And yet at the same time, I was always impressed by the focus on the community, the importance of beit knesset (gathering house), of the minyan (the quorum of 10), the stress for community service, tikun olam (repairing and improving the world). In fact, I was always impressed that you can, essentially, remove god from the basis of judaism and it would still stand as a guide to moral behavior, as the worst and most unforgivable sins aren't against god but against another human being (e.g. on yom kippur you can be forgiven almost anything, except sins against man that you have to ask forgiveness from those you've hurt).

Probably my favorite thing about my religion, though, is how one's actions trump anything else. You can sit in yeshiva all day, praying and studying, you can be one of the greatest rabbis ever but if you're a dick to other people, if you never give charity, well you're just not square with god.

As for god, yeah I believe in god. But my interpretation is that god isn't all knowing. Because of free will which was given to humanity, god learns from our behaviour just as we would learn from god. Consider all the tests and trials god put people through and the often surprised reaction that followed. The joy at abraham's deciding to put his own son at risk in service, the anger at Moses for losing it at the rock of Medibah. Pretty much gods righteous anger at the various times we tossed our religion and customs aside in favour of adopting foreign customs, and then later saying "you know what, they want a king like everyone else, fine. Let's see where this goes."

For the idea that God is male...well that's just silly. The name may be masculine, but its a divine being, in fact the only one according to monotheism if you believe it so why the hell would it have a reproductive system, let alone penis and testicles? Sure god refers to itself as masculine but I mean, the people god directly talked to were male so maybe it was just a way of connecting with them?

Also, when Moses asks god for the name, god replies אהיה אשר איהיה which is "I will be what (that) I will be." The אהיה is future tense and non-gender specific and rather cryptic.

So yeah, I dig my religion even if I myself am not religious.

That's funny: God provides organised religion to give the rest of us an example of how not to do it. Good thinking