Religion

What religion are you belonging to? I myself don't believe in a God as he/she is described in Christianity, Islam or any other religion. I have my own God, who exists only for me. I don't want to offend anyone here, but in my opinion the (major) religions as they exist, are made to control/brainwash people. Events like the crusades and the "Jihad" (hope I spelled it right) speak for this, people try to convince other people with force to join their religion, and I think at this point a religion is nothing Godlike anymore, but rather a way of some leaders to rule over the believers and/or non-believers.
Please vote in the poll!

i gave it up! Religion only tears people apart!

Pretty devout Catholic here, other than with sexual things I try to follow what the church teaches.

Nice poll. Moved into art of attraction and allowance, that is where spirituality, religion, occult, new age etc resides now.

I don't practice a religion per-se, I respect them all. Technically I would be condemned by most of them. I practice meditation and believe in a higher power. I know god is with me because even when I can't see what I want what I need is usually right in front of me. The thing is god is really really quiet and things "not of god" tend to seem very loud. Currently I have a lot of anger with god and it is to be expected I think it is a lesson god is having me learn. I don't belive god is of man or woman it is something like an energetic life force where we all exist.

I was born christian. And I still respect that. But I also feel that religions like hinduism and buddhism are more advanced.

I was brought up as a christian... but I believe people can take the good out of each religion and appy them to their lives... religion to me can b a distraction from really feelin the fullness of God that's why I think jesus fought so much against the religions of the day because people would b to focused on religion than human kindness

Nice to see different members chime in on this and in a respectful manner

wanagrow;422321 said:

I was born christian. And I still respect that. But I also feel that religions like hinduism and buddhism are more advanced.

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I would agree on the doctrine issue. I am the Buddhist vote above. Buddhism explains how life interacts with its environment as well as elucidating that they are in fact, one, on the most fundamental level. Western beliefs miss this respect of the environment and the result is very clear. Western theism also teaches that the deity controls one's destiny-which I would say leads to some sense (at least on the subconscious level) that one is really helpless and at the mercy of a destiny decided elsewhere. Buddhism teaches that one controls their own destiny, which gives them responsibility for all that happens in their life. I would also point out that theism and Buddhism are in fact, mutually exclusive-for the concept of creation as well as an external being or outer being or higher power, etc. controlling destiny runs completely contrary to the most fundamental doctrines of Buddhism. Buddhism is indeed an "Atheist Faith" and much more of a philosophy than a religion (religion by definition usually requires at least one god). And the largest single group of Atheists on this planet, after babies, is Buddhists.
Hindus actually range from Atheist, to Monotheist, to Polytheist, the last being the most well known. I know less about Hinduism, but in a very broad sense, Buddhism is considered one of the 6 branches of Hinduism. They are very different however, yet tend to share some fundamentals such as reincarnation and karma.

However-what one claims to believe is quite irrelevant.... the four Christians up there might be more Buddhist than I, even though I may know more about it, profess faith in it, and claim to practice it. All that matters is one's deeds. And within that, it is the nature of the deed that counts.

I'm a Christian... that said I do not always follow the strict leadings of our church!! I think the church should not control peoples lives!! The greatest commandment is to love God and love each other!! We do that and I think we'd see a lot less problems in the world!! I agree with lazyhanger in that in some instances that the churches and religions will brainwash people!! I don't force anyone to believe what I believe, but I will stand up for it!! Its who I am and who I'll always be!

Priapus90;422413 said:

I'm a Christian... that said I do not always follow the strict leadings of our church!! I think the church should not control peoples lives!! The greatest commandment is to love God and love each other!! We do that and I think we'd see a lot less problems in the world!! I agree with lazyhanger in that in some instances that the churches and religions will brainwash people!! I don't force anyone to believe what I believe, but I will stand up for it!! Its who I am and who I'll always be!

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Only thing I'd say about that is... well, the 2 commandments are fine and great and so forth... but what about all the other stuff in there that the church bases those policies on? My point is, you can get your 2 commandments from say Aesop's Fables without the vague or even bad stuff. Example, you ever read the Book of Timothy? This is one written by Paul, and Paul was quite the woman hater. Timothy is a pretty scary book. But it IS in that library we call "the bible", which means from the doctrine of any Christian sect that uses this bible as their doctrine, it is "the inspired word of God". That is just one example, but there are hundreds, maybe even thousands that cause problems. So the question I pose is that of doctrine-this one seems very flawed to me, both in its historical accounts, its logical accounts, and certainly in its moral guidance. People will try to blame man for the evil that has occurred in the past with this book used as the justification, such as "Manifest Destiny"-yet if that were true-all religions would murder, war, etc. in a similar ratio to their numbers (ie similar number of murders per capita)-this is a requirement to use a "the evil is in the men, not the doctrine" argument-yet it's completely not true. Because it is not true, we have to go back and look at doctrinal differences and then we actually see strong statistical correlations between murders, wars, etc. and what those doctrines say and do not say.

So I don't disagree with what you said, loving your god, and treating the least of men the same as you would he.... is a good thing. But since the doctrine has much more than that in it, I suBathmateit the doctrine based on what it says and what it has been used to do-is not only flawed, but not worth the minority of good things it also says-that can also be found elsewhere without the murder and mayhem. Just some food for thought. Doctrine is crucial to a religion or philosophy. If men can be good without it-that is, like you describe; "take the good and leave the bad" then.... what is the point of the doctrine? It's pretty easy to figure out that it's generally wrong to kill or steal, etc... we don't really need anybody to tell us this. But those things that it says that are NOT common sense, and then call them "the word of God"... well that's another matter, and clearly a very dangerous thing.

I respect all religions, they are all the same with different names. I have studied most and find beauty in them all.

doublelongdaddy;422509 said:

I respect all religions, they are all the same with different names. I have studied most and find beauty in them all.

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They may have the same goals, like "happiness" or "social harmony"... even there on the latter I'd have to retract that, so let's stick with "happiness"-they disagree greatly on the definition of this and the path to get there and where "there" is. Fundamentally some religions are complete opposites. Like I said, for example it would be impossible to be both a Buddhist AND a Christian unless you sacrificed so much of one or the other that it was no longer there. So I disagree that they are the same. I see little difference among say Judaism, Christianity, and Islam... but ... they are all Abrahamic Religions-they are really from the same cloth, not just the same tree (the tree here would be "theism") so that is no shock. But take Buddhism and Hinduism, they share a few things-but ultimately are vastly different, in function, in practice, and in theory. Confucianism is really nothing like any of them... I could go on and on but frankly, the deeper into one you go, the more you find that it is indeed mutually exclusive with many others.

I would have trouble finding similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. They both might say "don't hurt other people"... but they completely disagree on why, on how "hurt" is defined, on how absolute this rule would be, and on whom is actually harmed... suddenly that similarity seems kind of fragile and shallow eh? Just my 2 cents.

Also find me a Christian (Catholic or Protestant variety) that would even ALLOW you to call "LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) " a sect of Christianity. And frankly you would again be unable to be say a "catholic mormon"... LDS doctrine contradicts so much of Catholic doctrine-in fundamental ways that they are really nothing alike when you examine them both closely. These are both sects of Christianity yet differ greatly on the most important questions within the respective sects. These comparisons are much more obvious-the more you know about the 2 faiths being compared. History also reveals the effects of different religions-and this too is vastly different across the spectrum. There is quite a bit of evidence that suggests that
A/ All religions are NOT equal (regardless of how you define 'equal') and...
B/ All religions are far from "the same".

Also-to make my point clearer-Buddhism is a great example of how untrue this is. There are thousands, THOUSANDS of sects of Buddhism. Some of those have a few to several dozen sub-sects within them! Among these Buddhist sects, fundamental beliefs differ greatly. Some of these sects would be closer to Christianity than they would be to what I would call "Buddhism". Buddhism is not like Christianity, no matter what sect of Christianity that I can think of, they all share a few things-like they all believe Jesus is God and the Savior ( I think..). Buddhism could not even say that, the closest it might be able to come to give them all some common ground is "All these sects derive either directly or indirectly to one or more teachings of the historical Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha". But if you went into a random Buddhist temple-you'd have NO IDEA what they might worship, a Statue? A Pantheon of Statues? This Buddha? That Buddha? This Buddha and those 4 Bodhisattvas? A Scroll (mandala)??? A Wooden Mandala?? A Scroll with a picture on it?? A scroll with writing on it??? A circular, colorful mandala???? So check that out-if they don't even agree on the most fundamental aspect of ANY religion---the object of worship, consider how much they might disagree on actual doctrine.

Imagine if every christian sect held up only ONE book of the bible, or perhaps just one page and said "This. This is the highest and only valuable teaching" .... yet they were all called Christians. If you don't appreciate that yet, go randomly to a bible of any sort, randomly look at 2 pages-and then imagine if that was all it taught and how vastly different it would be from the other page's teachings.... They really would be nothing alike. If you can fathom this, then multiply it by at least 1,000... you are finally beginning to understand how diverse just ONE of these religions is. And Buddhism may very well be the MOST diverse.

Example: If you claim you've studied Buddhism, you likely mean the Theravada variety. 8 fold path, 4 noble truths, etc?? Yes, well I don't believe in either of those things yet I am a Buddhist. I would say the 8 fold path is an inferior teaching of no merit. I would also say having a statue of a Buddha is "heresy".... But many Buddhists would disagree with me lol.
I would also say this: I've been studying Buddhism for over 20 years, yet I've still only scratched the surface of the depths of the teachings in my one sect. I could not imagine someone claiming to understand all or even 10% of Buddhism in its whole, including all its sects. My library of just my one sect consists of over 200 books... so imagine what it would take to study all Buddhist sects??? I can't even fathom it. So back to the point-it is highly unlikely that "all religions are the same".

I think this is an appropriate time to link my thread that has several e books on religions around the world incl the fascinating Zoroastrianism.

The Babylonians, Assyrian's, Sumerian's and Mesopotamians were the first large civilised kingdoms on earth and the amazing ancient artefacts found are really something. Some say Mesopotamia spawned the very first religions and is where many of today's such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism for sure have been influenced by.

REDZULU2003;422566 said:

I think this is an appropriate time to link my thread that has several e books on religions around the world incl the fascinating Zoroastrianism.

The Babylonians, Assyrian's, Sumerian's and Mesopotamians were the first large civilised kingdoms on earth and the amazing ancient artefacts found are really something. Some say Mesopotamia spawned the very first religions and is where many of today's such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism for sure have been influenced by.

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Of course... we'd know much more about these cultures if the christians hadn't burned down the great Library of Alexandria lol...

Also, yes much of christian theology appears to be stolen from Egyptians and others. For example, the creation through sound. Also-creating the first human out of clay or dust. The word "adam" actually means clay, as a result of the material the god in both cases used to create him. Other things appear to be of pagan origin. For example-there is no christian significance of December 25. Nothing important in Christian history happened on that day. It was however the day of the Winter Solstice, and this solstice was the celebration of the return of the Sun, celebrated with gifts, candles, etc. The dominant pagan religion of the day was "Mithraism". Mithra was the Sun God, and he was born on December 25. This is the true nature of this date, it is the birthday of Mithra, not Jesus of Nazareth.

However, to make Christianity the state religion in the 4th Century C.E., Constantine had to appease these pagans-and make it a smooth transition. So many of their traditions and celebrations were adopted and became part of Christianity. I believe the only non-Pagan Christian holiday is Pentecost. All the others are stolen pagan holidays, including Easter.
And the "borrowed" theology is unlikely to stop there... see Mithra was also attended by 3 wise men following a star bearing gifts at his birth. Mithra was also born of a virgin. Mithra also raised the dead. Mithra also died, and rose 3 days later, and ascended to Heaven..... Since Mithra was first, it is clear that the Jesus story appears to be based on Mithra.

Mithra too is not the first or only god in history to do most of these things. Krishna dates back 1000 years before Jesus and also did most of these things (virgin birth, raising the dead, dying, being reborn, etc.). There are almost 40 gods before Jesus that did all the fancy things Jesus did. From that perspective, Jesus looks more like the flavor of the month (or millenium in this case) than the "one true god" to me. Man has invented over 10,000 gods throughout history-we should be suspect of all of them, ESPenis EnlargementCIALLY those that were created (or at least redefined) by politicians like Constantine.

Crazy Doc;422705 said:

Krishna dates back 1000 years before Jesus and also did most of these things (virgin birth, raising the dead, dying, being reborn, etc.).

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Krishna is not born of virgin. His parents are Vasudeva and Devaki. He ultimately died when a arrow hit his legs. And his date of birth is also not on 25th december.

wanagrow;422716 said:

Krishna is not born of virgin. His parents are Vasudeva and Devaki. He ultimately died when a arrow hit his legs. And his date of birth is also not on 25th december.

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Well... some sources say he was indeed born of a virgin (see below) and I never stated he was born on Dec 25, I said Mithra was born on Dec 25 and krishna from birth to death did many of the things jesus did, including immaculate conception (virgin birth):

"His advent was heralded by a pious old man (Asita), who could die happy knowing of his arrival, a story paralleled in the Bible by that of Simeon (Luke 2: 25).
Krishna was born in a cave, which at the time of his birth was miraculously illuminated.
Devaki, the radiant Virgin of the Hindu mythology, bore Krishna to the god Vishnu (second god of the Trimurthi (also called the Hindu Trinity).
"The divine Vishnu himself descended into the womb of Devaki and was born as her son Krishna." Boslooper, Thomas, The Virgin Birth, SCM Press, 1962, Pp 148 & 149; cited in: The Virgin Birth of Christ.