by hillary_step 50 Replies latest jw friends
I have no issue with a person having a spiritual dimension, but I wonder why people have difficulty accepting that the religion that an individual makes up inside their head is no more or less worthy than the ones other people have made up in their heads.
Why do people feel the need to have others tell them what to believe and how to think?
Simplistic though this may sound, this is at the basis of all religion.
Does religion scratch the itch of our insecurities?
HS
Does religion scratch the itch of our insecurities?
Numbing as morphine with half the tolerance
Why Religion?
Because we are God.
Riddle: "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." Who's speaking?
The genie of Isaiah
....is no more or less worthy than the ones other people have made up in their heads.
Maybe because some of us do not think these others are not entirely made up? That statement is fraught with assumptions with respect to the truth value of other religions.
Burn
HS
My thoughts to your question are, life is a journey those who have gotten to the point of your realization are further along on the journey.
It seems in the begining most of us are sheep even the baby wolfs.
Why does someone think I need to listen to Beethovan while I am trying to concentrate on the question: Why do I think my religions smells like flowers and others smell like pig szhit?
Ok, I turned the sound off, never thought of that sooner.
Be back later.
belbab
HS
I have no issue with a person having a spiritual dimension, but I wonder why people have difficulty accepting that the religion that an individual makes up inside their head is no more or less worthy than the ones other people have made up in their heads.
Why do people feel the need to have others tell them what to believe and how to think?
Simplistic though this may sound, this is at the basis of all religion.
Does religion scratch the itch of our insecurities?
I think that there is lot more to religion than what you've outlined above.
People like to believe that their spiritual dimension is in harmony with truth. So rather than reflecting insecurities, religion imo reflects a seeking of spiritual coherence between one's inner and outer reality within a like minded community. Emotional well being is one of the results.
I think the 'needing to have others tell them what to believe and how to think' is a very small aspect to a religious person.
Glad to meet you, belbab. Sorry, if the sound distracts you. You may turn it off while you concentrate on your next post. Don't mind me, no problem.
Dogaradodya, I certainly do not mind Beethoven, but you should merely link to the streaming video rather than embedding it. I have to turn off my sound on this thread, which means I must also interrupt the playing of MP3s on this computer. Could you kindly edit your post above and remove the embedded link?
Thanks,
Burn
I think it is a sad part of ourselves (and I think we are all prone to it) that none of us like to be wrong…especially proven wrong. We all like to think that we see things right, that we have the clearest, sharpest and most correct view. Some religions, like the JWs, actually pander to this fault of ego. We have an elitist side to us that we often battle and gets in our way from being honest with ourselves and others.
So whether a religion is based on fact or fiction, it can’t necessarily be judged fairly on just the adherent and their point of view. How do we know that their view of their adopted religion has not been clouded by ego?
And what makes people advance some idea and then tell others that the idea must be adopted? The same can be said about ideologies or philosophies—it isn’t just religious philosophies or views that get forced on people. Marxism and Fascism are examples.
While some people may exercise religion on exactly what you say, I don’t believe it is true that all religion is based on what you claim it is. Was Mohandas Gandhi trying to advance the idea that religion should be forced on people or that one group of people was better than another? How about Mother Theresa of Calcutta? Was she, by making sure people weren’t left to die in the streets, doing so to advance an ideology to force others to think a certain way? Both these people’s actions and lives were motivated by their deeply held religious convictions. Are they examples of people doing things just because they had an itch of insecurity, or is it that others are insecure about adhering to a set of virtues that often take courage to follow?
As one author put it regarding at least one religion: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
