What is "Religion"?

[AVG-JOE]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lHlCa1M3c0&playnext=1&list=PLF3B441D9E9D81BC4]Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Episode 1-The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL-AWC1fezE]The Human Spark - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6A8oGtPc4]Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 1 of 13) - YouTube[/ame]


What is "Religion", if not the most reasonable answer to the question that marks the beginning of Sentience: "How did I GET here?"

 

[nitroz]

The forcing of one's beliefs on another.

Oh, wait...

 

[AVG-JOE]

Oh, wait... What?

 

[Grandma]

The definition of religion is "spritual discipline."

 

[Avatar4321]

religion is to take care of the widow and the fatherless and keep oneself unspotted from the world.

 

[AVG-JOE]

The definition of religion is "spritual discipline."

What does that mean?

 

[AVG-JOE]

religion is to take care of the widow and the fatherless and keep oneself unspotted from the world.

How is that working out for you? Seems like impossible goals to measure.

 

[Grandma]

The definition of religion is "spritual discipline."

What does that mean?

It is the way you train your soul. Imagine if there were no religions, or secular belief systems. What would your soul be like as you grew from a child to an adult?

There are very many different religions, each of them have their own way of training.

Look at the shao-lin, they have extensive martial arts training. Does that get them closer to God? Well, in a way - it's great exercise, they can clear their minds or meditate while warming up, and the deadly force they now posses must be used with great wisdom. Look at the Methodists. They don't have much by way of exercise, to the contrary most that I know cook like crazy. A lot of religions promote fastidious housecleaning.

Okay, so those are side issues, but they do figure into the overall big picture of where you want to train your soul. What works best for you, fasting for several days, meditating every day, handling live poisonous snakes, being part of a group that's locked itself away from the evil world, chanting or praying several times a day, or making great ceremony of religious events like Easter and weddings?

When you get right down to it the moral codes are pretty much the same everywhere - don't steal, don't lie, don't kill, etc. What is added onto those basics, or what is it in the way those basics are presented that leads someone to one sect and not another?

 

[AVG-JOE]

Well, whatever ones religion is, it's a learned experience. Since religious activity represents the birth of organized human activity and organized human activity requires rules and regulations. I imagine that a child growing up with no religious training would be free to discover his own answer to the query: "How did I get here?"

 

[Borillar]

I was thinking religions are basically guilt with different holidays.

 

[BreezeWood]

religion should eventually free the Spirit from the material confinement of its birth.

 

[uscitizen]

Religion is the result of the need of most humans to belong to a pack and the fear of death and the need of a few to control the many.

 

[skye]

Somebody once said "Religion is the opium of the people"


I believe in God, I believe in spirituality, I believe in Something greater and wiser than ourselves... what I don't believe in, is in organized religion.

 

[AVG-JOE]

Are there any religions that don't try to answer the question of origins?

It's central to the stories of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God......



How do YOU think we got here?



I believe that if Momma's* Little Semi-Sentient Bastards have a Father, His name is Time.

Luck is the equivalent of 'God' in this scenario, because Luck is the intangible thing that gives Time the opportunity to grow a wet rock circling a random star into Life smart enough to want to know Itself.


All Religions have a story of origins, and an intangible, unknowable reason why we survive in spite of our selves and our environment in space....

If a religious story of origins is bullshit, how can you trust the associated explanation of its Luck**?




* As in 'Mother Earth'.
** Insert your preferred Deity here.

 

[uscitizen]

How do you think we got here?

I rode in a starship.
I wil be leaving on 12-20.

 

[Neurotika]

"what is religion"

an excuse to impose your will on another by way of some 'moral superiority' that you really do not posses yourself

 

[AquaAthena]

Oh, wait... What?

I found Einstein's interpretation of religion very interesting.

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have expressed this clearly. If something is in me that can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the Universe so far as science can reveal it... A knowledge of the existence of something that we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man." - Albert Einstein

 

[BreezeWood]

Luck is the equivalent of 'God' in this scenario, because Luck is the intangible thing that gives Time the opportunity to grow a wet rock circling a random star into Life smart enough to want to know Itself.

luck does not exist

upon completion only the necessary ingredients are put in place to free ones Spirit.

 

[AVG-JOE]

In my opinion, Luck = God and God = Luck. I defer to the sordid history of this wet rock in space as evidence.

If God looks out for drunks and fools and there's no such thing as Luck, you had better start drinking and acting foolishly if you want to get to heaven.

 

[amrchaos]

I don't think a religion has to answer the question of origin.