what is religion?

Question

these days people are after religious conversions. Do they knew about religion?

Answer 1

Religion is the opiate of the masses. It cushions man from the objective reality of their ultimate death and annihilation.

Answer 2

There are many definitions of religion, and most have struggled to avoid an overly sharp definition on the one hand, and meaningless generalities on the other. Some have tried to use formalistic, doctrinal definitions and others have tried to use experiential, emotive, intuitive, valuational and ethical factors.

Sociologists and anthropologists see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. Primitive religion was indistinguishable from the sociocultural acts where custom and ritual defined an emotional reality.

Other religious scholars have put forward a definition of religion that avoids the reductionism of the various sociological and psychological disciplines that relegate religion to its component factors. Religion may be defined as the presence of a belief in the sacred or the holy. For example Rudolf Otto's "The Idea of the Holy," formulated in 1917, defines the essence of religious awareness as awe, a unique blend of fear and fascination before the divine. Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as a "feeling of absolute dependence."

Answer 3

Religion is unscientific answers to questions about the fundamental cause of the origin of the universe, of the forces which rule the universe, of the forces on earth, of the energy of life, of the origin of mankind and so on. Mostly these answers are full of imagery destined to be understood by most men and for all by ordinary, simple-minded, simple hearted people. Many of these answers have been found wrong by the scientists during the last centuries. Nevertheless many religious people, sometimes intelligent people, stick to their believes even if these believes are proved unrealistic, against common sense or totally wrong.
Examples: The "virgin" Maria, the mother of Jesus had four sons and several daughters; a mother of God and a God in three persons is polytheism; the "wonders" of Jesus can all be explained by natural reasons; a soul has not yet been found nevertheless it should be eternal and goes on living after the death, where? And so on.
Being religious is a matter of education and constitution of the brain when it is impressed with esoteric and mysticism. I estimate that in times of freedom the percentage of people practising religion is about 27%, in times of war or collective worries most evidently higher.

Answer 4

Religion is self imposed rules to live in a deceplined way by which your life can be peaceful and others life too can be so..
It is a faith in a way of life that helps to realise that all beings are part of one devine power which we call God.... thus loving each other... and living and letting others to live peacefully & happily.
Those who indulge in tactful conversion knows not about relegion but are doing business and are not religious in the real sense. Relegion is like the Beacon Light that gives the direction to the ship that lost the right path. Religion spreads Love.

Answer 5

...religion does not actually exist. Rather there are a great number of traditions of belief and practice that, for the sake of convenience, we call religions but that could scarcely differ from one another more. It might seem sufficient, for the purposes of research, simply to identify general resemblances among these traditions, but even that is notoriously hard to do, since the effort to ascertain what sort of things one is looking at involves an enormous amount of interpretation and no clear criteria for evaluating any of it. One cannot establish where the boundaries lie between religious systems and magic, or folk science, or myth, or social ceremony." David B. Hart

Answer 6

Religion is faith and loyalty shown by an individual towards a Supreme authority "The God"or ''The controller of Nature''. Religion is to bind the people by mutual love and affection for each other and not to spread hatred in the society. People indulged in blaming others religions, considering their religion superior, instigating convertions are certainly damaging the fine fabric of society and don't know the philosophy of religion. A pity.

Answer 7

Religion - A few ethics inducted upon you that can guide to towards a peaceful life maintaining a perfect harmony with the society. A religion is not our identity, it's a tool provided to us to identify ourselves as integral part of the society.

However in todays world religion is wrongly interpreted as following the so called God. Everyone agrees to the fact the God is one and you may call Him by what ever name you want, The very same Super Natural Being is gonna respond. We have discriminated ourselves in the name of religion.

Let me give you an example. It's about Buddhism. Lord Buddha preached about Salvation, Nirvana, Peace of Mind etc. While he was preaching those ethics he had no idea the a group of people would be discrimanated by his name. Now we call the His followers as 'Buddhists'. Buddha never preached Buddhism. But we created buddhism because we wanted to separate the things.

Another example. Lord Jesus was christened. It's only after his that he came to be known as Jesus Christ. Before that he was just Jesus. Few years down the line, his followers were labelled as Christians. Did Jesus ask them to create another division of mankind called christians - No. But human flaws have to come into play. Peopel wer still not satisfied. As the population of christians grew, protestants, catholics, etc. came into picture. Are they following what Jesus Christ preached or are they following the fundamentals laid down by a few church authorites (Worship Jesus, or Worship Mother Mary, Or neither of them but directly the so believed Father of Jesus).

Conversions with ones own choice and will is perfectly justified. However a lot of missionarries encourage forceful conversion. They would offer money to the poor and promise a hell lot of benefits if they are converted. And you cannot cliam that these offerings are acts of charity. Charity doesn't ask anything in return, but these missionarries ask you to give up your ethics and embrace theirs. If they really wanna show somew charity, make those offerrings without such terms...

:-)

Answer 8

Some are honestly after religious conversion to a happier state of mind.

Some are trying to control minds or money

Answer 9

Religion is making yourself right with God. There are two categories, Work Righteousness- do it yourself. Or believing God did it for you through Christ. That is the main difference, all other religions say you have to do something to get to heaven.

Answer 10

religions were discovered by intellectuals at the beginning of civilisation of humankind... all the religions were preaching improvised way of life... the place of god was however at the top of the theory... when there were invasions of the followers of one religion the losers were forcefully converted to the victor's religion... however the current age is not for conversions... it is out of prejudices...