The Importance of Religion

[Razard86]

If I was never raised in the Christian Church (My Denomination was Seventh Day Adventist one of the most strictest denominations of the Christian Church) I would have never awakened. From my youth the story of Jesus touched me on a deep level and made me want to emulate him. I unlike most Christians took the story of Jesus seriously and his belief that we could be like him seriously as well. 

I also took the story of Solomon seriously as well. In the Bible when God asked Solomon what he wanted he prayed to God for wisdom, at the age of 16 I got on my knees and prayed to God for wisdom. I realize that God gave me exactly what I wanted. This is why life is absolutely fair, because you will be given exactly what you want, your true heart's desire. The issue is most people do not know what they really want and are running in circles. 

When I went through my trials and tribulations growing up, the story of Jesus and the other characters in the Bible were a symbol of how I could respond. The deep wisdom found in the Bible was illuminated and given to me. At the age of 16 I spent an entire year and read the Bible cover to cover and at the age of 20 I placed the Bible down never to own a Bible again. Why? Because I got the message. Study to show thyself approved, approved by what? Yourself.

The message is just Self-Love. From the finite to the Infinite. Without the power of religion I could have never awakened, with that said I'm not saying religion is the only path for the youth to discover love. We have many great movies and t.v. shows and leaders both past and present who can teach the beauty of love. But for my path, my journey, religion was a core piece that was needed. It gave me strength, it empowered me both through its stories, but also the people I met in the Congregation as well. It gave me structure, and a model, a lens at which to look at life.

Without that foundation I could have never awoken, without the devotion that religion instills in you the path of surrendering to love would be difficult. Religion is a perfect form of training wheels for the young, its a great form of laying the foundation needed to experience and understand love. The only problem? Many of the preachers....do not understand what Love is really at the deepest depths so they cannot speak it. But this is okay, because everything is always as it should be. All of life is always moving to greater and greater expressions and acceptance of what it is, and this too is why religion is so beautiful.

People are dropping religion more and more because religion needs to rid itself of its judgments and understand what the story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was really saying. Because the story literally tells you that everything God created was good and you only see evil through your human knowledge. Why did they call it fruit? Because the purpose of your knowledge is to digest it.....when your body digests food it takes what is needed and discards what is not needed. So the story is just telling you, take your knowledge and use it to survive, but expel any notions that anything is evil. 

There is no evil but anything that threatens your self-interest, and self-interest is just BUSINESS. When you create a world based on BUSINESS then you create a world based on self-interest and as a result that world becomes a competition for who can be the best at getting their own interests served, which is a competition for who can be the most selfish. As such....you make selfishness good, and selflessness evil. Thus you never digested the fruit, you never took a dump. 

What happens to people who cannot expel their feces? They get sepsis. So the world is septic because they never understood the point of survival, they never understood why eating the fruit caused the fall of man...it caused the fall of man because you never took a shit!!! LOL. Anyway religion is a fun way to use symbolism, epics, tales, to teach lessons. Like Aesop's Fables is a good story to teach lessons. I love religion even though I am not religious, because religion helped me awaken. 

With that said...I find it funny how Atheism and Religion are both right about God in their own way are secretly in agreement and also could both learn from each other. Because of the corruption in Religion, Atheism is borne. It is interesting how corruption always gives birth to a movement against it, it always divides and creates something new. I wonder how Atheism is going to birth a new Religion? How will religions change world wide...and what new religions are going to emerge from this conflict? 

[AerisVahnEphelia]

 Religion is only misery and inspire me with pity, of course I consider materialism and atheism equally religions.

 

[HMD]

33 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

Without that foundation I could have never awoken, without the devotion that religion instills in you the path of surrendering to love would be difficult

That's relateable

[Princess Arabia]

The part about the feces,.septic and taking a shit..lol..really gave new meaning to "take what works and leave the rest". Loved this whole post.

What do you think about Spirituality being a Religion in itself. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. 

[Razard86]

4 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

The part about the feces,.septic and taking a shit..lol..really gave new meaning to "take what works and leave the rest". Loved this whole post.

What do you think about Spirituality being a Religion in itself. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. 

Well it all depends on how we define religion....many people associate religion with dogma, and with tradition.

That is one way to look at it. We could also personalize religion and call it a practice of devotion to a higher source of power or more expansive source of power. 

For example...look at how Osho defines religion. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wk1xvoQg1oA

He makes the argument you can only be religious WITHOUT a religion. LOL. Trippy huh?

I actually agree with Osho on one part, you cannot truly be religious without discarding religion. Because true religion should actually be Spirituality. The whole purpose of religion was to lay the foundation for a practice of connecting with all that is. If you notice Spirituality has the same purpose, to teach you how to connect with all that is. 

For example...not doing anything....is the same as doing. So your practice could just...be, BEING.

Another practice could be dancing, singing, etc. And that could be your practice, to connect to being by doing something with so much devotion that you realize that doing...is also being. 

So yes I actually see Spirituality as a religion, but a religion FREE OF DOGMA. To me Spirituality is the cultivation of an individual connection and expression of your divine individuality. And to me the purpose of Religion ultimately is the same thing. So for me Religion will gain back its power when it seeks to assist you in your individuation, but to expand that individuation towards the infinite. 

[Princess Arabia]

3 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

Well it all depends on how we define religion....many people associate religion with dogma, and with tradition.

That is one way to look at it. We could also personalize religion and call it a practice of devotion to a higher source of power or more expansive source of power. 

For example...look at how Osho defines religion. 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wk1xvoQg1oA

He makes the argument you can only be religious WITHOUT a religion. LOL. Trippy huh?

I actually agree with Osho on one part, you cannot truly be religious without discarding religion. Because true religion should actually be Spirituality. The whole purpose of religion was to lay the foundation for a practice of connecting with all that is. If you notice Spirituality has the same purpose, to teach you how to connect with all that is. 

For example...not doing anything....is the same as doing. So your practice could just...be, BEING.

Another practice could be dancing, singing, etc. And that could be your practice, to connect to being by doing something with so much devotion that you realize that doing...is also being. 

So yes I actually see Spirituality as a religion, but a religion FREE OF DOGMA. To me Spirituality is the cultivation of an individual connection and expression of your divine individuality. And to me the purpose of Religion ultimately is the same thing. So for me Religion will gain back its power when it seeks to assist you in your individuation, but to expand that individuation towards the infinite. 

I saw that Osho short also (I'm subscribed to his channel). It made sense to me. I think, like you said, it's a way of looking at things. Thanks

 

[Sucuk Ekmek]

It is nice to have one in the palette.

ATM alternative to religion(What I mean by religion is explaining the cosmos&self)  is the technology and scientism, which is a very centralized structure. Religion(s) are generally more diverse and open to understanding and interpreting. You take this things with a grain of salt as expected, but this is quite oposite for technology because it's the ultimate determined knowledge.

In a board sense religions are still viable, because we can't educate&cultivate ourselves based on rationality, at least in mass scale.

Religion lays the foundation model for us the biological beings the human.. then it's up to actor to determine the act. 

In a sense religion invents the human like William Shakespeare did.

Btw I don't subscribe to any religion but if we don't want to go back to good  old food chain circle we need to tell people what to do and don't. Religion is an education and we just don't have better system to offer.

[Razard86]

3 hours ago, Sucuk Ekmek said:

It is nice to have one in the palette.

ATM alternative to religion(What I mean by religion is explaining the cosmos&self)  is the technology and scientism, which is a very centralized structure. Religion(s) are generally more diverse and open to understanding and interpreting. You take this things with a grain of salt as expected, but this is quite oposite for technology because it's the ultimate determined knowledge.

In a board sense religions are still viable, because we can't educate&cultivate ourselves based on rationality, at least in mass scale.

Religion lays the foundation model for us the biological beings the human.. then it's up to actor to determine the act. 

In a sense religion invents the human like William Shakespeare did.

Btw I don't subscribe to any religion but if we don't want to go back to good  old food chain circle we need to tell people what to do and don't. Religion is an education and we just don't have better system to offer.

Technology is not the ultimate determined knowledge. In fact current technology functions without full knowledge of why it functions. For example wireless technology runs on superposition. Scientists (especially the Atheists) do not understand why superposition exists, (religion knows why) but there technology runs on the principle of superposition even though they can't explain it.

I can explain it. Superposition is translogical, translogical is proof of God, proof of Infinity, proof that reality is not bound by time or space. 

[Sucuk Ekmek]

1 hour ago, Razard86 said:

Technology is not the ultimate determined knowledge. In fact current technology functions without full knowledge of why it functions. For example wireless technology runs on superposition. Scientists (especially the Atheists) do not understand why superposition exists, (religion knows why) but there technology runs on the principle of superposition even though they can't explain it.

I can explain it. Superposition is translogical, translogical is proof of God, proof of Infinity, proof that reality is not bound by time or space. 

I don't underestimate my fellow human beings, but avarage tech consumer is not interested in God, superpostion or time and space, so I would skip the explanation.

Of course the technology is not the ultimate determined knowledge, but this is how they sell it and how we buy it. As a technology maker if you want to take advantege  of the newest technology you better treat it like a mythical figure, it should be  above the so called ''human conciseness.'' So in that sense it's in the realm of ultimate determined knowledge. 

My claim is; there is only one way out for the new incoming technologies and it's the deterministic universe model.In this model we can not separate human and machine from each other. 

[Breakingthewall]

All that religion stuff has no relation to awakening. If you want to open yourself to reality you must empty your mind of ideas completely. you must lighten your human psyche to the point of dissolving it. If you fill it with religious ideas, this is impossible. It may be useful for having a better life, but not for real openness. In fact, it is a very important obstacle

[Princess Arabia]

29 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

All that religion stuff has no relation to awakening. If you want to open yourself to reality you must empty your mind of ideas completely. you must lighten your human psyche to the point of dissolving it. If you fill it with religious ideas, this is impossible. It may be useful for having a better life, but not for real openness. In fact, it is a very important obstacle

I know what you're saying and I agree but I have a few caveats here. Everything is in relation to everything else. Religion may be serving it's purpose for some to see the untruths in parts of it which may lead one to realize Truth. Saying one SHOULD empty our minds of ideas completely is itself an idea. No? Enlighten me here; because I think it is, but I may be wrong. Nothing is impossible as this is Infinity where all things are possible. I do agree with the message, though, as it can be an obstacle if one does not have an open mind when engaging in Religion. 

[UnbornTao]

Useful for what?

When it comes to enlightenment work, religion is in fact an impediment and totally unneeded. This isn't to say value can't be found by following a religion, but why would you want that? You can pursue whatever value or principle that's empowering in a particular religion and leave the dogma and rituals aside.

Why do people fall into religion in the first place? 

Edited October 26, 2023 by UnbornTao

[An young being]

Religions help in the sense that they give faith and hope in difficult times and also not view everything around them through a scientific lens.

[Razard86]

Many of you on this forum...suffer from a lack of reading comprehension, you argue against points never made. Why even comment on something you don't even take the time to understand? My gosh...

Edited October 26, 2023 by Razard86

[Breakingthewall]

9 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

Saying one SHOULD empty our minds of ideas completely is itself an idea. No?

I don't think so, It's just an action. For example, an idea is: reality is infinite love and you are that, and everything must exist since nothing is excluded because God is pure love and does not exclude anything. Those things Razard says. They are ideas that you add to the psyche, which is a software with many layers that is working continuously. Awakening is leaving the human psyche, and for this the first thing is to lighten it, and the way I see to lighten it is to realize that any idea is software of the psyche. But you don't realize it by thinking about it, or because someone tells you, but when you see it, and to see it you have to leave the human psyche, and for this psychedelics are very useful, also meditation. Without them what you do is add things to the psyche, and think that that is being awakened, that is what is called religion. 

 

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

I don't think so, It's just an action. For example, an idea is: reality is infinite love and you are that, and everything must exist since nothing is excluded because God is pure love and does not exclude anything. Those things Razard says. They are ideas that you add to the psyche, which is a software with many layers that is working continuously. Awakening is leaving the human psyche, and for this the first thing is to lighten it, and the way I see to lighten it is to realize that any idea is software of the psyche. But you don't realize it by thinking about it, or because someone tells you, but when you see it, and to see it you have to leave the human psyche, and for this psychedelics are very useful, also meditation. Without them what you do is add things to the psyche, and think that that is being awakened, that is what is called religion. 

 

Ok, I see. Thanks. PSYCHEdelics = PSYCHE... hmmm.

[Breakingthewall]

51 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Ok, I see. Thanks. PSYCHEdelics = PSYCHE... hmmm.

Psychedelics are just a tool to dissolve the human psyche, meditation can do the same , but for me it's much more easier to do 5 meo sometimes until you understand how the mental software works, what are the thoughts, the mental structures

[PurpleTree]

I mean without religion we wouldn’t have all those beautiful old churches here in europe that i like to look at

[Sucuk Ekmek]

12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

If you want to open yourself to reality you must empty your mind of ideas completely. 

This sounds cool in theory but in reality if you want the best ideas you need a well structured mind.

[AerisVahnEphelia]

13 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

All that religion stuff has no relation to awakening. If you want to open yourself to reality you must empty your mind of ideas completely. you must lighten your human psyche to the point of dissolving it. If you fill it with religious ideas, this is impossible. It may be useful for having a better life, but not for real openness. In fact, it is a very important obstacle

Religion don't exist really.

the truth is that, when your mind get attached to a set of "value/belief/practices" then you've a religion.

Not having one, is : waking up as Hitler, another day as Gandhi, another day as Mao, another day as Jesus christ, another day as Buddha, another day as moïse.

The day you start being a character, you are into a religion.

But also if you fail to be a character of your making, you might also be inside a religion of not having one.

Careful here.