Seeking Enlightenment

Seeking Enlightenment [+ favourites]

I am posing this question because I think alot about what religion represents could be revealed if we really took the time to understand what it takes to make one happen, especially where it may come from in our psyche's. What is driving it by the answers given in its composition. What and why many are attracted to a religion as well as why many find comfort in one. Would comfort be a reason? How by the way it is founded influences the outcome of what direction it takes. Religions seem to just happen with very little concern of what it is its doing and how it will evolve, so this may also give a chance for those interested to suggest or predict directions it may take, for better or worse.

Imagine you have never been influenced by any religion or spiritual worldview, yet something inside you keeps you curious about the nature of all things. If you had to establish your own religious path what concepts would you include in them? What would you establish as a central concept and what goal to strive for with it? How much control would any aspect of it have or be expected? What would you base it on? What would you leave out? What impact might you think it have long term if it had a large following?

Many variables I know but the sky is the limit. Hope you take part.

Paul

This is an extremely important topic... probably one of the most important topics according to me.

I think the question, however, is not targeted well enough. I think if we discuss the pros and cons of the various different "rules" religions have we'll get into a superficial debate that is really not beneficial.

I think the most important thing to wonder is, how would you go about discovering what moral guidelines you want to follow.

You are absolutely correct in that it is the method in which it is conceived that influences the path it will take, and so it is these intentions and motives that must be explored.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

I don't really wish to pretend as if I had never been taught religion, because that would be impossible to do accuratly - we would just be guesing.

But

Living in a free society where all beliefs are allowed and having studied many of them - I have a conclusion that you or someone here might be looking for.

You have a spiritual/invisible world and a physical/material world and religion is the communication between the two and what happens in one effects the other.

As far as why we would be attracted to religion is that of course we wish to believe that there is more than our intelligent self. We reason with questions unanswered and seemingly unanswerable.

"A fool says I know and a wise man says I wonder."

Follows is my opinions, no one should take them as insulting, please.

In my views, human kind (generally speaking of course) has a base need, a requirement for a higher power. When we are born and nutured, we of course have our parents to feed us, keep us warm, comfortable, and safe from obvious dangers, and those unseen terrors that lurk just outside the circle of the firelight of our reason.

What happens when a person has grown, and has children of their own? Who do we look to, when something new and unknown startles us? Who do we ask a question of when our own child is sick? Who do we confide in when an old fear rises from the grave of childhood lost to haunt us once again?

In my personal experiences, things I have researched and experienced, we, human kind, have created the Deities. Is there an Abrahamic God? Yes. Dagda, Vishnu, Ra, Hearne, Isis, Brigid, and all the rest? Yes, to all.

At times, these Deities will call us to them, simply due to the compatablility betwen ourselves and those Deities. Sometimes we find our Diety on our own, that same concept of compatability drawing us to Them. The former is how I came to alight on my God and Goddess, and the Path I follow now.

At other times, that Base Need is satisfied by simple social pressures. When one has that urge to believe, and the only religion recognized by one's nieghbors is one fo the many sects of Christianity, for example, one generally gravitates towards that religion to satisfy that internal craving.

This is a concept used by Christian Fundamentalists, for example, to pad their numbers during times of war and famine.

Another reason is reason itself. Human beings (in general) also have a base drive to explain our surroundings, and our origins. One should note that no new religions have surfaced since science has become a force in the world. "New" religions are based on the old, a new sect or a new interpritation of ancient scriptures.

Is the question how did moral guidelines come about? If so, I think morals have a root in human kinds memory. It seems the only thing stopping me from doing anything wrong (wrong in my opinion) is when I put myself in that person's position and think how they would feel. So morals come about through understanding, like anything else. We're at the top of the food chain, we have no predators, except for ourselves. So I guess morals are protecting ourselves from ourselves. Maybe morals are the only thing stopping us from complete anarchy. There would be no sense of community without them. Perhaps the only way to have a community is to have a set of morals that everyone must follow. Depending on the community you want, the morals would change accordingly. Communities are just like a song. Depending on the mood the subject is in, the subject may choose a happy song or a sad song. There seems to be a place for all things in this world. It must be a time in human kind's life span for a happy song.

As far as absolute morals go, I don't believe in them. I've yet to see any absolutes in anything in this reality. Perceptions, concepts and ideals don't seem to change though.

"I try my best to be just like I am but everybody wants you to be just like them."