My interesting philosophy...

[KanadaHye]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

Ideas that are your own are venturing out to subject yourself as unbiasedly as you can to ther religious beliefs and see if you have the capacity for faith in that religion or not. Most people tend to just decide if they believe in their parents' religion or not, and base their decision as such.

That's because your parents instill in you whatever values they were taught depending on their own background. Some tend to rebel because they find it too difficult to conserve those values or don't see a benefit.

Either way, we shouldn't be ignorant of other cultures or religions, it's up to us to educate ourselves. It would be a rather boring world if we were all the same.

I think of God as this intelligent being that planted the seed and it's up to us to take the world where we want it to go. Instead society often seems to attribute things to God when in fact we have been given the intelligence to control and govern ourselves. Government is not God, the only reason they own us is because of the atrocities that were committed in the past (and still occurring in many parts of the world today) taking away our rights to land and true freedom. When we learn to tolerate and respect each other and share everything that God has given to us, then and only then will we realize just what a wonderful world it really is. However, it seems that we have short term memories when it comes to history and we seem to have a greater ability for evil than good. It's also easier to strive for evil and reach it than to aim for perfection since we know it's impossible.

[Tali]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

and to think, that idea spawned from Buddhism and the idea of "Oneness"

[jgk3]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

It's true, this conversation, and "everything else" (including everything we find good or bad, religions, parents, etc...) is actually part of God if you define God as the source of all things!

[Tali]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

Which ideas are your own? Everything we learn is from interaction with our surroundings. If you never left your own city or community, how much knowledge of the world would you have?

Ideas that are your own are venturing out to subject yourself as unbiasedly as you can to ther religious beliefs and see if you have the capacity for faith in that religion or not. Most people tend to just decide if they believe in their parents' religion or not, and base their decision as such.



Aside from that, I was amused to see that this thread sparked yet another common behavior: the comparison of God vs "everything else."

[jgk3]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

All people really want is to be happy. Religions promise happiness if you follow along in the requirements they attribute to God. But the fact that Christianity resorts to making a fantastic realm of happiness out of the afterlife, that far exceeds what can be found here on Earth, polarizes man's love of the natural world, and the ideal of true happiness. Rather than trying to understand happiness through earthly pleasures and pursuits, now man is told to look upon them with guilt, because they are sins, and in essence, do exactly what their authority says will keep them pure if they hope to get into heaven.

Comically or tragically enough (depending on how you see it), this is not limited to organized religion. This fear of not following the requirements or ideals of a group exists in families and gangs too, it can happen whenever a few individuals gather up the themes of their culture or sub-culture and start expressing their sense of what's good and bad in a way that doesn't tolerate opposing views. Once their view gains acceptance by the group, a "religion"-like culture starts to form. Those who fundamentally disagree will naturally want to rebel, and if they stick to their guns, they'll manage to flee and do their own thing. But all who choose to remain will have to hear a nice narrative about how those rebels fell to some "sin-like" kind of affair, unless the whole group has a change of heart, and is affected deeply by the actions of the rebels.

This is a very human affair indeed, and doesn't require discussion of God to exist, though it tends to reach a great social scale by doing so. Many of us do care about spiritual and existential matters which can make us initially draw towards people who talk about those themes.

[Odar]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

You can also "travel a lot staying in Concord" - sure, that doesn't replace first-hand experience, but it can be a good starter nonetheless.

As for faith, I was grown up without any kind of religious education. I guess my parents were pretty disillusioned with Church (Catholic) and the exploitation of religion for political purpose so they decided to leave it totally up to me whether to embrace a whatever cult or not. As a result, I'm an agnostic. I've been reading and reflecting a lot about the subject but not enough to persuade me to have faith in any god. Maybe because I can't help but think of the abuses committed in "his" name.

[KanadaHye]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

The reason I asked if he went reads the scriptures and sermons is because i wanted to lead up to this question:

parents tend to be the guidance towards what faith you are. then as you get older, you either agree or disagree. so, your ideas are not really your own. they're reactions to what others think and preach to you. thus my question becomes: if religion is based more on interpretation/reaction to a given explanation, then isn't faith simply one's own conviction?

Which ideas are your own? Everything we learn is from interaction with our surroundings. If you never left your own city or community, how much knowledge of the world would you have?

[Tali]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

The reason I asked if he went reads the scriptures and sermons is because i wanted to lead up to this question:

parents tend to be the guidance towards what faith you are. then as you get older, you either agree or disagree. so, your ideas are not really your own. they're reactions to what others think and preach to you. thus my question becomes: if religion is based more on interpretation/reaction to a given explanation, then isn't faith simply one's own conviction?

[KanadaHye]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

I came up with this idea that every religion is like a realm (not your realms like you have in Lord of the Rings...). They are all situated like a Venn Diagram (if you don't remember, it was a compare and contrast exercise in which you had two circles that would overlap in the middle. You were to write their differences in their respective circles, and their similarities in the gap of overlap). This way, they are all distinct, yet it is the overlap that causes similarities. Further, the realms are opaque (or clear; like windows) so you can see into other religions and learn about them. The catch is, you have to have faith for that religion in order to enter its "realm."

Bearing this in mind, this led me to believe that every religion is true (thus I became a very tolerant listener of disciples of various religions...), however, because I lacked faith I was not able to join that religion.

Since religions were conceived from reflections of human values in our physical world, it only makes sense that there are similarities among them. However, each religion was created under different political circumstances during different time periods in history which is what gives each religion its own distinct world view. What disturbs me is when governments use these truths to their advantage (if you know how people are living their lives, you can manipulate and create policies which will take advantage of this). This is why there is a demand for separation of religion and the governing state. In other words... we shouldn't have Muslim, Christian, J3wish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. nations since as JGK3 pointed out, religion is a personal philosophy that teaches about life and gives guidance to the individual. Not everyone should be leading the same life and making the same decisions (which is where Free Will comes into play).

[jgk3]

Re: My interesting philosophy...

do you study the scriptures and the sermons?

I sing in the church's choir, and hear the priest's sermon on a weekly basis.