definition of religion
- Thread starter triken
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What is your definition of religion and belief?
Religion as we generally know it, is a series of beliefs, dogmas, rituals, superstitions; it is the worship of idols, of charms and gurus, and we think all this will lead us to some ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is our own projection; it is what we want, what we think will make us happy, a guarantee of the deathless state. Caught in this desire for certainty, the mind creates a religion of dogmas, comes there to be free to discover reality. This means not following any system, not clinging to any belief or ritual, and not worshipping any guru. The individual has to awaken his intelligence, not through any form of discipline, resistance, compulsion, coercion, but through freedom. It is only through the intelligence born of freedom that the individual can discover that which is beyond the mind. That immensity - the unnameable, the limitless, that which is not measurable by words and in which there is the love that is not of the mind - must be directly experienced.
Yes, thank you china.
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I don't believe both are necessary for faith. Religion is not needed, imo, to have faith. Belief may be needed, but not religion. Faith can be present even when one doesn't know a single tenet of a single religion. Otherwise where would religion have grown from? When the first person looked to the sun and decided that it must be God, there was faith without the trappings of a religion.
I don't believe that belief is even really necessary for religion. Nowadays, your typical person is confronted with atheism every time they turn around. Not so long ago, most people--in Europe--took Christianity for granted and didn't really think about it. Many people just went through the motions of the dogma without thinking about it, without believing it really.
I agree. Stand in any church for five minutes and you'll see quickly that belief is not needed to be religious. Even here on the forums I have debated with one staunch, tithing, church going Catholic who had no faith in the existence of a deity whatsoever, he just liked that Catholicism pushes the same social agenda he liked. He was, for all intents and purposes, an atheist who liked to go to church.
Niflmir, sometimes I really wonder if all these televangelists believe all the mumbo jumbo they spout. Or perhaps they are just good businessmen, entrepreneurs (some are not even that, like Jim Bakker, they are lousy entrepreneurs) and they say the things they say on TV just to make money.
That is pretty much my take on it. I simply cannot fathom the leap of faith it requires to believe in a higher being. Other species in space sure, but no gods.
and, wasn't Kathryn Hepburn in that movie with him? both were good,
I liked Lancaster in everything he made.
lol You antique.
I saw a good one starring him as a trainman in WW2 one time. Really good movie. I think it was B&W but I don't care, I watch color ones, too.
