Is spiritual alienation ultimately the price we must pay for our religious imagination?

Answer 1

I hadn't really thought of that. God is an absentee creator. Maybe that's why he always made me feel so empty and I kicked the habit.

If you mean that the religion we have created alienates us from our spiritual God or from true spirituality, then I'd say it can go both ways. For some, it seems to fill a void, adding that explanation and hope to their lives, and give them a community. For others, like me, it can actually create a void of confusion, separate you from that which is "ultimate spirituality" (eternity in heaven/God), and separate you from what was your community. To me, the Christian God just seemed so brutal, cold, and disinterested. It all depends on the person, but that can definitely be the case.

Answer 2

Spiritual alienation and religious imagination are actually self defeating..
What we all seek or imagine spiritually is an understanding of our fellows (as spiritual beings) and life itself.
This understanding can only come from increasing communication with life, in order to establish more agreement (reality) to create an actuality from what we imagine.
Doing this will increase affinity , closeness, and reverse alienation.

Spiritual alienation is the wrong way to make our religious imagination an actuality. It is infact the exact reason why your religious imagination has NOT become an actuality.

Stop paying that price and take a different route.

Answer 3

Actually, and with no offense meant, you have that backwards.

Religion, in an organzied sense, doesn't strictly offer us opportuinties to "Imagine" in the various doctrines. Spirituality on the other hand is not only about imagination,,,which by the way should be limitless, but it's about intuitions, and experiences that verify or affirm our spirituality.

Certainly a faith in an organized religion can offer us those same things.

It's as personal as anything you can "imagine" and can't strictly be compared to another, or any answers here. It's your very own, and need not be influeneced in any way,,,especially negatively.

Alienating an organized religious faction, is not at all denying ones spirituality,,,it's just this,,,,

I offer an analogy.

We all seek comfort zones/levels. When we assume we've found one, we usually try to nurture it, learn about it, enjoy it, and often remain in it,,,UNTIL such time when it may no longer fulfill us. enlighten us, offer us comfort, or a feeling that it blends with OUR spirituality. At such time that may happen,,,,HOPEFULLY, we seek another "Comfort Zone/Level.

Rev. Steven

Answer 4

It's certainly possible we can achieve one of two aims with Religion. We can create a religion that doesn't need to compete with other belief systems to strengthen it's Dogma or we can all adopt the same religious belief avoiding conflict. However it is the very appeal of religion to humans that opposes this. The primary appeal of religion in human behavior is the notion of unmeasurable superiority, an authority that cannot be challenged. This means that ultimately human constructed Dogma must measure differences against other faiths to maintain this superiority and even if there are no other faiths some humans will allways find distinctions to attain this superiority over others.

In essense humans participate in religion to alienate themselves.

Answer 5

Define 1. spiritual alienation and 2. religious imagination.
Is 1. alienation from the spirit?
is 2. imagination of religion?
Yes, it may be true.
Then again, it may not be true.

Answer 6

Yes this is a good way to put it. Religion is always a limitation that we place on God.

Following the teachings of any religion to a certain extent alienates us from the true God.

God has no limitations, any attempt to describe God automatically limits Her.

The very act of saying that God is this, invariably says that God is not something else. It is a deficit that is intrinsic to language, that can not be over come.

When I described God as Her I was providing an example. By saying Her I was limiting God to a particular gender. This is not true of course it was simply an illustration. Gender is not a requirement of spirit.

Love and blessings
don

Answer 7

Spiritual alienation is what a non believer recieves when they did not accept Jesus as their savior before they died.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Answer 8

I do enjoy the phrase "religious imagination". It just goes together so well.

Answer 9

I am happy to be going to heaven. I am sad that so many reject Christ.
Pride comes before destruction.

Answer 10

Not at all. You will pay the price for disobeying God.